For a Few Shepards More
by thebluninja
Summary: Angela, Neville, and Victor Shepard wake up in a Cerberus facility following their destruction of the Citadel. Something else has been abducting colonists throughout the Terminus Systems, and instead of pulling in dimensional clones of herself, the effect is spreading. Three Shepards, accompanied by three Taylors and three Lawsons, set out to save the galaxy.
1. Awakening

_Author's Note: So begins the sequel, __For a Few Shepards More__. Unlike Fistful, this one is going to be much more serious, though hopefully I can still pull enough humorous moments out. I hope everyone will enjoy this much as much as Fistful._

* * *

"Shepard, wake up. You have to move. The station is under attack." Angela opened bleary eyes, looking around in utter confusion. She had a brief flit of memory, a dark-haired woman and a shifty-looking man leaning over her, and an arm – her arm – little more than a mess of raw meat. Her mouth was dry, the standard lights sent stabbing pains straight through to the back of her head, and every muscle was so sore she could barely move enough to fall off the table.

To her surprise, she landed on her feet. To her greater surprise, there were two matching set of footfalls. She looked up, squinting.

On the opposite side of the table was Neville, one of her adept counterparts, looking incredibly strange wearing nothing more than a patient gown. At the foot of the bed was Victor, the Russian soldier counterpart. All three of them, upon recognizing each other, quickly scanned the room. "Where's the rest of us, then?" Neville asked, his British accent sounding strangled through his throat.

"I don't know. What's the last thing you remember?" she asked, leaning on the table as she straightened up. To her embarrassment, she was also wearing nothing more than a patient gown, the air conditioner breeze causing goose bumps to rise on her exposed ass cheeks.

"We shouted at the Catalyst to die. When it did, a burst of bright light, and the Citadel exploding around me," Victor said. Neville nodded along.

"Shepard, there's a pistol and armor in the locker in the corner. You need to hurry, there are mechs coming towards your position." They all looked at the intercom in the ceiling.

"No idea who she is," Angela said as she started limping towards the locker, "but so far, her advice is top notch." They followed her as she popped open the locker to reveal the pistol, singular, and armor, also singular. "Alright, now what?"

"Simple. Victor puts on the armor and takes the pistol, and we stand behind him," Neville said. "You take the omni-tool, and I'll use my biotics. At least until we can get better equipped." Angela reluctantly agreed. As much as she wanted the armor – for warmth and covering her bare ass as much as protection from rogue mechs – it looked awfully heavy, and Victor was already seeming to recover better than they were.

"Speaking of your biotics, how are they?" she asked, and he calmly flexed a hand, summoning up a small ball of biotic force.

"Shepard, they're about to blow open the door. Get into cover, and grab that thermal clip for the pistol," the mystery woman said again.

"A thermal clip?" Victor groused as he loaded it. "What next, the new gun upgrade shoots rocks instead of tungsten projectiles?"

The door blew in a moment later, two humanoid robots standing there with pistols of their own. Angela overloaded one, while Victor shot the other one in the optic before calmly stepping up and hitting the off switch on its chest. "Da, good, now we have pistols for everybody. Now we go find the rest of our Shepard Squad?"

"Sounds like a plan to me," she said. "Lead the way, meat shield."

"Now you are becoming true Russian," he teased her as they stepped into the next room and shooting at a trio of mechs.

"How do you figure that?" she asked as she fired off another overload.

"Ancient Russian military successes all focus on one strategy: throw bodies at problem until it goes away," he said, picking up another couple of thermal clips.

"As long as I'm not the body," Neville added, "I'm alright with that. Where's Gina or Ubon? We could use a few more tech-heads right now."

"I don't know, and that worries the hell out of me," Angela said. They continued through several rooms, watching a recording of mystery woman talking about the efforts spent to bring Shepard back from the dead. "One thing bothers me about that," she said, closing the safe she'd just hacked open. "Why is she talking about everything in singular fashion?"

They replayed it, listening closely. "You're right. This woman is running a project to bring back one Shepard, not three. There was only one bed in that room, too."

"Then the rest are not here. Maybe takes more time for them to come back?" Victor mused aloud.

"I don't know, but if we don't stop these mechs, we won't get a chance to find out," Angela said. "Let's keep moving."

They picked up a grenade launcher, Neville carrying it so as to keep Victor's hands free, blew up another dozen or so mechs, and paused outside of another door. "I hear gunfire inside," Neville said. "Survivors, I hope?"

"One way to find out," Victor said, hitting the door and lunging through. Behind a steel balcony railing were three people, firing over the top at mechs on another balcony across a lovely four-story drop.

"Shepard?" all three of them said in unison – eerily familiar unison. "What the hell?"

Angela looked at Neville and Victor. "Something tells me the other Shepards aren't coming." She looked at the three survivors, all wearing nearly identical black and white uniforms. "Alright, who knows me?"

The black man nearest her raised his hand slightly. "I'm Jacob Taylor. I'm part of the security detail here to bring you back. I know those two, they're part of the group of dimensional clones you had when you stopped Saren." The other two were staring at him, wide-eyed.

She pointed at the Hispanic guy behind Jacob. "I'm Miguel Taylor," he said in nearly the same voice. "Neville Shepard vanished while scouring the Terminus Systems for Saren. Without him, the geth succeeded, and the Reapers are harvesting everyone in the galaxy. We managed to recover his body after it reappeared, and were trying to bring him back to life."

Lastly, Angela pointed at the only other woman there, furthest away from her. "Pari Taylor," she said. "Similar to what he said, except Victor vanished attempting to stop the Terra Nova disaster."

"Attempting?" Victor muttered worriedly.

"Ah, Shepard, can you give me a minute? I need to talk to, um, myself," Jacob said.

"Sure, go ahead," Neville said, his face now haunted. "We'll just take out those mechs across the way."

Angela popped up and overloaded one in the doorway, causing it to explode and tip another one over the balcony edge. "Something weird is going on here," she muttered.

"Something weird always going on around you," Victor responded. "This is new?"

"What happens if every single person we come across goes triplicate? Especially if, like they said, your home universes are under Reaper control?" Angela asked guiltily.

"Angela, love, what is or isn't happening to our homes isn't your fault. You didn't bring us here," Neville said reassuringly.

"Alright, Shepards. Since we appear to still be in my universe, I'll lead us out of here," Jacob said finally. "But there's something you should know first."

All three of them promptly crossed their arms, staring down their counterparts. The patient gowns on Angela and Neville made that somehow even more threatening. "We're listening," Angela said grimly.

"All of us work for Cerberus," Jacob said.

"The same Cerberus who decided to try and use Thorian creepers as slave labor?" Neville asked.

"The Cerberus that sent rachni young to multiple planets?" Victor growled.

"The Cerberus who slaughtered a platoon of Kahoku's troops and then murdered him?" Angela ground out.

"Ah, well, kind of," Jacob said, his hands already raised defensively, pistol at his hip. "I don't know what other Cerberus cells have been up to, I swear to you. I used to be Alliance myself. But I quit when they started trying to erase everything you did."

"We'll accompany you to the shuttles," Angela said after a long moment of silence. "But if we don't get some really, _really_ good answers, you won't have to worry about the mechs."

"That's fair," Sari said. "But can I point out, Miguel and I were trying to bring back our Shepard to stop the Reapers?"

"Much as I appreciate it, love, that's not a great comfort right now," Neville said. "Now, we need to get out of here and into some real clothes, hopefully not in that order."

"I thought you were staring at her ass?" Victor said, causing a furious blush to rise across Angela's cheeks – all four of them.

"That's not the kind of thing you're supposed to say, wanker," the adept replied neutrally. "While it is a nice ass, it's also a little uncomfortably like watching myself in a mirror."

Sari looked at the two male Taylors, who both looked somewhat green at the thought. "The shuttles are off this direction," she said. "At least, if his Lazarus station is built the same as mine, they are."

Following the Taylors, they shot down several more mechs, received a transmission from Wilson, noting the dark frowns on all of the Taylors. "Damn weird to hear Wilson as a guy," Miguel muttered.

"Let's get to him, just in case," Angela said.

"What do we do if he splits, too?" Jacob asked.

"Retire to Bekenstein and hide," Victor answered grimly.

They stormed into the server room, and to their relief, there was only one Wilson present. "What the – three Shepards? And who the hell are these two?" he babbled, one hand covering the trickling bloody wound on his leg. The three Shepards drew together off to one side as Miguel got the medi-gel and treated the bullet hole.

"Something is off with this bloke," Neville said quietly.

"That wound, probably self-inflicted," Victor agreed.

"We'll watch him closely as we get out of here," Angela murmured. "Jacob, how much further to the shuttles?"

"Not that much further. But whoever hacked the mechs probably has some waiting for us in the shuttle bay." He carefully checked his pistol before gesturing to the far door. "Through there."

"Oh crap, more mechs!" Wilson cried hysterically, ducking back behind the console he'd been using as shelter when they arrived. Two mechs versus six of them wasn't a hard challenge. "Miranda's got to be a goner by now," Wilson muttered.

"Doesn't matter, we're going to find her," Jacob said.

"Oh, joy," Angela said to herself. Somehow, she just _knew_ that Miranda, aka Mystery Woman, would be another headache for her.

* * *

Dossier: Miguel Taylor

Like Jacob, Miguel is a biotic, only his Alliance service was spent as a support Sentinel rather than a front line Vanguard. While they share the same father, Miguel's mother was a dockside waitress who encouraged his enlistment into the Alliance. With the arrival of the Reapers, Miguel's entire ship defaulted to Cerberus after the destruction of Arcturus Station, and ended up on the Lazarus Project when the previous head of security was captured while acquiring supplies on Omega. Like Jacob, he stands 5'10" tall, but tends towards compulsive games like Tetris rather than three-hour long workouts.

* * *

Dossier: Sari Taylor

Unlike the other two, Sari is not biotic at all. Her mother was the caretaker for the only Hindu temple on Shanxi, and originally had Sari out of wedlock. She married Mr. Taylor two years after the birth of the child, and had another son, making Sari the only Taylor with siblings. She enlisted in the Alliance, being trained as an infiltrator, and uncovered proof that the Lazarus project had been compromised by the Shadow Broker shortly before her appearance in our universe. She stands 5'8", keeps her hair in a tight braid tucked down the back of her uniform, and usually has her left hand covered in henna designs.


	2. Meeting the Head Honcho

_Author's Note: Gah, I hate meetings that run an hour over schedule. So, we meet Miranda, TIM, and the pilot. Hope everyone is enjoying the sequal, and yes, it will deviate from canon in a couple of missions ... maybe several. We'll see how long the villains want to hide in the shadows before taking center stage. As always, I love reviews!_

* * *

Angela halted their band at the entrance to the shuttle bay. "Alright, so we move in here, grab a shuttle, and wait to see who else shows up."

"Nobody else is going to show," Wilson moaned in despair. Victor promptly slapped him upside the head.

"Then what?" She stared down Jacob, while Miguel and Pari shifted uneasily.

The darkest Taylor sighed heavily. "The idea was supposed to be we'd wake you up slowly, and let you know what's been going on in the galaxy. Given your previous history with Cerberus, no one figured you'd sign up with us, but we hoped you'd at least listen to us before leaving." Angela scowled at him, and he sighed again. "Shepard, I swear to you, even I don't know all the details. I haven't left this station in six months! I know where you can get answers, and if you don't like them, I will personally fly you to the Citadel and you can talk to Counselor Anderson yourself."

"Humanity's on the Council now?" Neville exclaimed. "Well now, that's a spot of luck, isn't it?"

"A damn sight better than our world," Miguel muttered.

Angela glanced at the other two Shepards, and they nodded. "Let's move out and get a shuttle, then." She grabbed Wilson by the collar as he tried to duck to the back of the group, using him as a shield as they stormed into the shuttle bay.

There were only a dozen mechs, hardly a challenge even with the shitty pistols she and Neville had picked up. She did make a point to swipe a couple of credit chits; while she wanted to trust the Taylors, she had plenty of bad memories of Cerberus facilities. "The shuttles are in through here," Wilson said, opening the door. He was stopped by three gunshots, fired in perfect syncracy. The three people then promptly went into a classic Mexican standoff, their guns pointed at the one on the right, with biotics for two and an omni-tool for the third pointed to the left.

"Lawson, put the weapons down," the three Taylors said.

"What is going on here," they said in unison, the effect broken as each one tried to say a different name. Three Taylors looked at three Shepards.

"I'm Angela Shepard. You must be Miranda," she pointed at the raven-haired woman. "So for you two, welcome to my universe. According to Jacob, we're one hundred percent Reaper free, but he's been unusually close-mouthed about what _is_ threatening the galaxy this month." Slowly, and with icy dignity, Miranda lowered her gun, and the other two did likewise. "So, how about some introductions?"

"I'm Titus," the ginger-haired man said, his accent almost a match for Neville's. "So, how is it there's no Reapers here?"

Angela didn't answer, turning instead towards the blond, who's form-fitting outfit was just a palette swap from Miranda's. "Ophelia," she muttered. "And same question as him," she waved her fingers at the man in question.

"Just to clarify, you guys are also from the same universes as Neville and Victor?" The two Lawsons nodded. "Two for two," she said over her shoulder to Neville. "Wanna bet it turns into a pattern with the next group?"

"Five credits says no," Victor rumbled. "I hope we find someone from Havok's 'verse. He was fun."

"Alright, the short version. Right before I went down to Eden Prime, another Shepard showed up on board the Normandy. Then another three on the surface, and some more almost every place I went, until there were twenty-six of us. Some cosmic fluke that had them all popping in to my universe." She could remember the vision she had of the 'original' destruction, but that was info she wasn't about to share. "Being together, acting in unison, like the way all of you were talking, draws on the dark energy of the universe. Too much of it and we could warp the structure of reality until it shatters. We used it to kill the AI that controlled the Reapers."

"How can you be sure of that?" Titus asked calmly.

"I saw Nazara die, right before the base of the Citadel exploded and spaced me." She met his gaze unflinchingly. "So, since they're not here, I feel pretty damn sure." Angela turned on Miranda. "Now, let's get any other survivors and get the hell off this station. I've been promised answers."

She looked over at Jacob instead of responding directly. "You told them?"

Pari shook her head. "Didn't see much choice in the matter, actually. You think she'd take it better if we hauled her off to the Illusive Woman and then find out?"

"You mean Illusive Man," two Taylors and two Lawsons said. "Wait, seriously? Illusive Woman?" Miguel asked.

"To answer the original question," Miranda quickly interjected, "any survivors already got off. There's only one shuttle left, and it only fits nine people, counting the pilot."

"We could have had Wilson sit on the floor, if you hadn't shot him," Neville said blandly. "Why did you do that, anyway?"

"He was the one who activated the mechs," all three Lawsons said (except for Ophelia, who said she).

"It might have been nice to question him though," Neville sighed. "Can we leave here now?"

"Absolutely," Miranda said firmly, opening the door behind them and leading the way to the shuttle.

During the flight, as Miranda flew with the door open, they talked. "So, wait. You just lined up two dozen Shepards and shouted at this AI?" Miguel asked skeptically.

All three Shepards shrugged. "Yep. Did it to the Thorian, too, but it was easier. Sovereign succeeded in your worlds without them?" Angela pointed at the two male Sheps.

"Yeah, it did," Titus said grimly. "Alenko did her best, but when the geth started pouring through the Conduit, she was killed organizing the counter-offensive. Your alien friends were all with her."

"Pretty similar to our world, but it was closer," Ophelia said. "Alenko was killed on Virmire, but Williams rallied the aliens and C-Sec. Chased Saren up the tower, and disappeared when the rest of the Reapers showed up."

"Hold on," Neville said suddenly, leaning forward. "We were in her universe. When we killed that AI-child-thing, and the Citadel went kaboom, well, we obviously got thrown back to our own universes. So how did you find us?"

Miguel and Titus looked at each other, while Pari and Ophelia mirrored them. Jacob just looked interested. "You reappeared on the places you vanished," Miguel said after a moment.

"Or close to it, anyway," Ophelia said hurriedly.

"What does that mean?" Victor asked suspiciously.

The blond actually looked a little apprehensive. "You reappeared in orbit, already dead. Your transponder in your armor worked, so we managed to pick up your corpse before the Reapers got to it."

"Hold on," Angela said, "what about me, then? I didn't think my body would be lost."

"We had an agent in C-Sec swap your body for a Jane Doe of the right size," Miranda called from the pilot seat. "Then spent the next two years working out how the hell to bring you back to life."

"You buried some anonymous body in my place?" she shouted, outraged.

"Shepard, I mean Angela," Miranda tried placating her, "if you run someone's fingerprints, retinal scans, and DNA, and still can't come up with a match, then they're anonymous. And it beat letting her get recycled into the Citadel protein vats." Everyone's faces twitched in unspoken horror, even Titus, who so far had been doing an excellent manikin impression. "And now, we're here."

They remained silent as the shuttle docked, the landing bay clear of all personnel as they disembarked. Miranda and Jacob led the way to a room that looked like a cross between a spaceport boarding area and a business lobby, and headed immediately for two of the terminals there. "Huh," Pari said curiously, "the color scheme is all backwards."

"Really?" Miranda said, raising an eyebrow. "Bright yellow walls? I will not work somewhere the color of a banana."

"It was soothing," Ophelia countered, running a hand through her blond hair.

"Whatever," they both said, which caused Titus to snicker softly.

"Shepards? The Illusive Man is down the stairs around that corner. He's waiting to speak to you," Jacob said diplomatically. Angela almost wanted to ask why Miranda and Ophelia weren't getting along, but then thought briefly about Kohana's tirades and Jared's blatant (and apparently consummated – she wasn't ever going to ask for certainty) relationship with Flora, and decided that if she couldn't get along with all of her doubles, probably no one else could either. "Oh, and the fabricator unit there should be able to get you and Neville some clothes."

Angela immediately flushed bright red; the discussions on the shuttle had driven her state of dress completely from her mind. All three hurried over to the unit, but Victor let them go first, shrugging when the adept raised an eyebrow in curiosity. "Armor is designed for undersuit. Without, it chafes," he explained quietly.

Once dressed, they headed down the stairs, stepping into a circle on the floor just barely large enough to fit all three of them. After a second, a ring of mostly orange holographic light rose up around them, and Angela stiffened slightly as they caught sight of the Illusive Man. _That's him, the one who shattered the original Shepard's universe_, she thought numbly. Glancing quickly at Neville and Victor, she determined they either had good poker faces, or didn't recognize him without being half-husked.

"Shepards," he said, gesturing with the cigarette in his hand. "This is slightly unexpected. Miranda updated me while you were en route. Having three Lawsons and three Taylors is an advantage, even though my hope was that resurrecting you would bring back all twenty-six Shepards."

"Sorry I can't oblige you," Angela snarked. "It's not under my conscious control."

"Be that as it may," TIM said smoothly, "I'm glad to see you, all three, are up and around. Has Taylor told you why I wanted you?" All three shook their heads in unison, causing the Cerberus leader to pause and stare at them. "Human colonies in the Terminus systems are vanishing. It started six months after you stopped Saren. At first, it was just small ones, outlying settlements. Lately, it's graduated up to entire planets. All of the buildings, the belongings, left behind and only the people vanished. No security footage is left behind, either."

"So why not let the Alliance or the Council handle it? Why does 'hey let's enslave the Rachni' Cerberus have to do it?" Neville asked.

"Those people are all in the Terminus to get away from the Alliance. Outside our borders, the Alliance has no jurisdiction anyway. The Council doesn't want to start a war by sending so much as one Spectre to investigate." He punctuated his scathing dismissals of the politicians with jabs of the glowing cigarette.

"That still doesn't say why I should consider helping you," Angela said after a moment.

"Shepard, you might disagree with my methods, but I have always wanted what's best for humanity. All I'm asking of you is to go to the most recent colony attacked, called Freedom's Progress. It was struck less than a day ago, and so far, I've been able to keep that news quiet, so the scavengers and pirates haven't descended yet. Look it over. Tell me what you see. Then you can have your pilot fly you to the Citadel."

"The Lawsons and Taylors will accompany us, no doubt," Victor added sarcastically, not waiting for the Illusive Man to nod. "Bolzhemoi."

"Don't worry, I think you'll like your pilot, and your ship," he said cryptically, and the hologram cut off.

"Grand, I wonder what kind of human-only nutcase they're going to stick us with," Neville said.

"I am offended at that," Joker's voice came down the stairs towards them. "You should know, I am an equal-opportunity bigot, Neville! I make fun of everybody." He paused expectantly, then looked around, his face falling. "Oh, this is just great, just fucking great. The Cerberus goon squad get their doubles, and I'm stuck as lonely old me."

"Joker, if there were three of you, you'd fight non-stop over who got to pilot the ship," Angela said, giving Moreau a careful hug.

"Yeah, but imagine the pranks we could pull!" He grinned, offering handshakes to the other two Shepards. "Besides, if you can duplicate the Cerberus goons, why not the new Normandy?"

"There's a new Normandy?" all three chorused. "Lead on, MacDuff!"

"Just so you know," Joker said, hobbling in the lead, "I'm not Scotty." Angela just swiped his ball cap.


	3. Stolen Freedom

_Author's Note: Sorry for not updating this last week; writer's block, ridiculously long days at work, and re-reading the awesome mega-crossover Hybrid Theory (look for it in the Ranma 1/2 section) stopped me from writing utterly. So, we go to Freedom's Progress, just with the Normandy, because, um, reasons._

_Want to make sure I respond to your review? Swing by the Aria's Afterlife forum here on fanfiction, and read the "How to Review" thread!_

* * *

"So, what's so special about this colony?" Angela asked as they climbed into the shuttle, Miranda taking the pilot seat again.

"It went off the grid only two days ago. So far, Cerberus has been keeping that fact secret," Jacob explained as he buckled his safety straps on. The other two Taylors followed his example, while everyone else just sat down.

Titus raised one elegant eyebrow. "Are you really worried about Miranda's flying ability?"

"She certainly couldn't be as reckless as Angela," Neville added, getting a dagger glare in response.

"I was not that bad!" she protested.

"Your favorite way to fight armatures was ram them," Victor said, grinning. "Very Russian." Ophelia looked offended at the thought of treating a vehicle that way.

"Hey, at least I wasn't convincing everyone to fight thresher maws on foot," Angela continued to grumble.

Pari and Miguel both stared at her in shock. "You fought a thresher maw on foot?" they chorused.

"Sort of. Havok – he was a ferret-Shepard – thought it wasn't 'sporting' to fight them from the inside of a Mako." They both turned pale as Angela related it.

Ophelia was frowning. "A ferret-Shepard? What good would a hand-sized rodent do?"

In response, Jacob pulled up a holo image on his omni. "Actually, he was nearly Victor's size. Some kind of bizarre semi-convergent evolution. And he wasn't the only non-human Shepard." He cycled through the images of various Shepards, most of them taken from their occasional appearances in Emily Wong's camera.

"A unicorn," Titus said disbelievingly. "You expect me to believe you had a _unicorn_ version of Shepard."

"She was a crack shot with a sniper rifle," Neville said with a grin. "Also really carried a torch for poor Garrus."

"As fascinating as this is," Miranda said, "we'll be landing momentarily."

"We took off?" Victor asked, standing up to peer out the small viewport on the shuttle's side door. "You are amazing pilot, Miranda."

She shrugged one shoulder. "I'm engineered to be perfect," all three Lawsons said in unison.

Angela shook her head as a faint thump ran through the shuttle. "Let's focus, people. First priority is to locate any survivors, then access any computers, surveillance logs, et cetera."

Jacob looked troubled as he stepped out, Titus at his side. "None of the other colonies has had survivors, Shepard."

"You did say you weren't first on the scene before now," Neville said, flaring his biotics. "Mayhaps someone else beat you to them."

"I certainly hope so," Jacob said, unmollified. "The main bulk of the colony was this way. Thirty thousand people lived here." All three Shepards exchanged glances and moved forward into the colony. The buildings were built along the edges of several connected, narrow canyons, and as they approached the first building, a trio of mechs came tromping out. Two seconds later, the nine of them continued moving forward over the random electronic scrap.

"Why are the mechs still active?" Victor asked. "This happen at other colonies too?"

"Not that we had reports of," Miranda said cautiously, overloading a Fenris as it charged ahead of another trio of mechs. "I can't decide if that's good or bad."

"Probably bad," Angela said, opening the door to the next building down the line. A bunch of weapons were suddenly being pointed at them as Neville and Victor stepped up to her sides. "Then again, maybe not. Those mechs yours?" she asked the group of quarians.

"Angela? Neville and Victor too?" Tali said, her voice suddenly growing in excitement.

"They're Cerberus, we can't trust them," one of the other quarians blurted out, his assault rifle still pointed at them.

"You pissed off the quarians in this universe?" Pari challenged Jacob. "That was pretty dumb, don't you think?"

"It's all a misunderstanding," Jacob said, trying to defuse the situation.

"You blew up one of our ships," the quarian growled, switching his aim to Jacob.

"A really _big_ misunderstanding," Jacob repeated, his hands up.

"Are you seeing what I'm seeing?" Neville asked Victor softly.

"I'm not sure. Angela, what's next to Tali?" The lead Shepard narrowed her eyes, focusing on a sort of smoky distortion, hovering in the air to either side of Tali. It thickened, becoming almost person-shaped, before fading back out again.

"What is going on here?" Tali said, putting a hand on the assault rifle and pushing the muzzle towards the floor.

Angela cleared her throat. "You remember how all the doubles of me kept appearing?" Tali nodded slowly. "Those three are Jacob Taylor and his two doubles. Those three are Miranda Lawson and her two doubles. I'm going to guess that those distortions were your doubles not quite appearing."

"You expect us to believe this?" the belligerent quarian said.

"Prazza, if you don't shut up, I'm turning on my metal saw and turning _you_ into doubles," Tali threatened, making him take a step back. "Shepard, while I almost believe you, that doesn't change the fact that you showed up here with Cerberus. What's going on?"

"They brought me back to life, apparently in a couple of universes, and asked me to look into why human colonies in the Terminus are vanishing." Angela and Tali stared at each other for a few seconds. "I don't know why that weird power brought in their doubles, but not Joker's or yours." She frowned. "Maybe they're waiting for something?"

"Angela, you make it sound like my doubles know they're going to come here," Tali protested, causing all three Shepards to frown thoughtfully. "Anyway, let me be a little more specific. You're here to find out what happened to the colonists, that's it?"

Angela peered at her suspiciously. "Exactly right. Which leads to the obvious counter-question, why are _you_ here?"

Tali glanced at the half dozen quarians behind her, took a deep breath, and nodded, totally ignoring Prazza's protests. "There was a quarian here on Pilgrimage. We received a scrambled signal from him two days ago, and landed here two hours ago to try and find out what happened to him."

"The bosh'tet is sick, he activated the mechs and ran when we found him," Prazza grumbled.

"But aside from that, we have no better idea than you do of what happened here," Tali finished. "I don't want us to be at cross purposes here, Angela, but I'm not turning over a traumatized quarian to Cerberus."

"He's the only witness we have to what happened here, Shepards," Miranda promptly protested. "If we don't get a chance to debrief him, we may never get a better lead on whoever's behind this."

"Doctor Chakwas is on board the Normandy," Jacob broke in, raising his hands pleadingly again. "He can get treated, tell us what happened, and still go back with Tali."

"First, we have to find the chap, and do it without anyone getting too badly hurt," Neville said. "Can we set aside our differences for now and accomplish that, at least?"

Angela looked over both sides as Tali considered. "Alright," the quarian said finally. "He's holed up in a warehouse office by the cargo docks. If we close in from two directions, we can at least split up the mech forces and make it easier on everyone." She forwarded the paths through the colony to the Shepards' omni-tools.

"Alright. Neville, go with Tali." Prazza started to protest, immediately waved down by Tali. "I know quarians don't have a whole lot of biotics, and I know you won't trust anyone in the Cerberus trios."

"Works for me. Let's move out," Tali ordered her squad, Neville strolling along at her heels, and in moments they were gone out the side door. "Oh, don't forget to watch out for the flying drones," Tali said over the comm channel as Angela and Victor led them out the next door, just in time for the first drone to launch a rocket at them.

"Thanks for the warning," Angela muttered, not really caring if the quarian heard her. Still, there wasn't even one drone per person, and between herself, Titus, and Miguel all spamming overload attacks as fast as their omni-tools could recharge, they were simple enough to take out. Past the next building, the next wave was no more difficult to take out.

"Angela, love, we have a slight hitch," Neville said calmly over the channel, and she restrained her urge to groan and beat her head against the nearest convenient wall. "Prazza and most of the quarians, actually all of them but Tali, myself, and one other girl, decided to ignore our advice and dash forward in the hopes of spiriting away this Veetor chap before you get there." A loud explosion echoed over the channel. "Unfortunately for them, Veetor had a couple of Ymir mechs. I don't suppose you could speed things up a bit?"

Groaning, she started running forward, Victor dashing ahead of her, swapping to his shotgun on the fly. They hit the main door, the eight of them scattering into the small cargo yard in front of the warehouse, just in time to see the Ymir step on Prazza and turn his head into a pancake. Three overloads sparked over its shields, moments before Pari's sniper rifle shattered one optic sensor. Two competing warps shimmered over its body, and a broken piece of the other Ymir was launched with a wave of Jacob's hand. Gunfire splattered against its armor as it tore apart one of the cheap wooden crates, turning boxes of do-it-yourself furniture into kindling. Pari and Titus dived out of the way as Shepard, Miranda, and Miguel launched another set of overloads.

The mech finally halted, twitching spasmodically, before Victor put another shotgun round into its head. "Well, that was exciting," Titus deadpanned. "I don't suppose we can find this lost quarian lamb before he brings down any more mechs on us?"

Angela nodded, looking around at the injured and dead quarians. "Neville, Miguel, Ophelia, help Tali with the wounded. Everyone else, with me." She strode over to the warehouse office door, the hack keeping it closed remarkably simple to break.

Veetor was sitting in front of a bank of monitors, babbling to himself. After trying to get his attention, without grabbing him by the shoulder and shaking him furiously like she wanted, she opened up her hacking program, and just shut down the monitors. After stiffening, he slumped down, turning his chair around slowly. "You're human," he said in surprise.

"A regular Sherlock Holmes, he is," Titus muttered under his breath.

"You have to hide," Veetor continued, leaping to his feet. "The bugs will find you!"

"The bugs?" Angela asked.

Instead of saying anything, Veetor turned the monitors back on. "The bugs. They swarm around, they find you, and they freeze you." The images, spliced together from dozens of security cameras, showed clouds of fist-sized insectoids whirling around, and when they touched a fleeing colonist, the person would simply freeze in place. "Then they take you." Humanoid insect creatures could be seen, taken the frozen colonists, loading them into stasis pods, and floating them away.

"Hold on," Angela said suddenly, backing up the image and zooming as much as possible on one corner. A different figure could be seen here, a humanoid shape clearly formed by hundreds of the smaller ones all clinging together. "What the hell is this?"

"Some sort of hive mind, perhaps?" Miranda guessed wildly. "Still, this is more than we've had to go on before."

"Right. Angela to Normandy. The colony is safe enough for the moment, so come down. Let Doctor Chakwas know there's some quarian patients who need TLC." She turned around. "C'mon, Veetor, let's bring you out to your people."

"No!" he exclaimed, panicked, pressing back into the chair, grabbing the armrests so tightly they creaked in complaint. "Have to stay here. Have to hide. The bugs will find me."

Angela leaned forward, looking into the faintly glowing eyes. "The bugs left here, Veetor. But I'm going to find them. And I'm going to make sure they can never do this to anyone else again." He calmed down slowly, and this time when she gently steered him towards the door, he didn't pull away.

* * *

Dossier: Titus Lawson

Unlike his female counterparts, Titus has no biotic potential. Raised by Henrietta Lawson, he fled his gilded upbringing to rescue his younger brother. Instead of biotics, Titus possesses a brilliant technical mind, able to jury-rig or design weapons, shields, communications equipment, as well as other civilian-oriented devices. He's only one inch taller than Miranda and Ophelia, with bright red hair and a surprising shortage of freckles.

* * *

Dossier: Ophelia Lawson

Aside from being blond, Ophelia is almost identical to Miranda in appearance. Her biotic abilities are much stronger, however, and as a consequence has not developed non-biotic combat abilities to the same level as Miranda. In fact, she could possibly be the most powerful human biotic yet produced, but no direct confrontation with Subject Zero has arisen to test their abilities against each other. Ironically, her younger sister was named Miranda, but the girl's refugee ship was taken by Reapers as they fled Illium.


	4. Omega's Arrival

_Author's Note: For those of you who haven't seen it, there's now a custom cover for __A Fistful of Shepards__, drawn by the incredibly talented Orifiel, and featuring Angela, Havok, and Polarity. She also writes, in addition to drawing awesome covers in Paint._

* * *

Angela watched the quarian shuttle lift off, her mind troubled. Veetor had been treated by Chakwas and boarded with Tali and the half of her team who were still alive, departing for points unknown. The bizarre shadows had shown up again, but still not developed into Tali's doubles, which frustrated all the Shepards to no end.

"Alright, we checked it out, and there's clearly some new enemy gunning for humanity in particular," Neville said as they walked back towards the shuttle. "The question is, do we continue to take Cerberus' money to fight them?"

"Better than constant raids on pirate bases to buy our own equipment," Victor mused. "Also, funnels money from them to us."

Angela considered it, turning over several lines of thought as they sat down and Miranda lifted off again. "Hypothetically speaking," she directed towards the two natives of her universe, "even though I destroyed what seemed to be Reaper Central Command, is there any reason that individual Reapers, far enough away from the blast zone, couldn't have survived and been behind this?"

It took Miranda a few seconds to process the convoluted question. "Whatever you did on the Citadel, it went through the entire relay network. All pieces of Reaper tech, as far away as the Hegemony, shut off. We've still been able to glean information from some of it, but the only way a Reaper survived is if it was somewhere the relay network didn't reach."

"So, it is possible?" Neville asked.

"Possible, but extremely unlikely. With the destruction of the AI on the Citadel, the Council has been pushing exploratory missions through unmapped relays. From the location of all the known relays, extrapolating mathematically, there's one every thousand light years or less." Miranda sounded extremely confident about the information, and even Jacob was nodding.

"Even if they did, it would be only a handful of Reapers," he said.

"You haven't seen what a handful of Reapers is capable of," Titus said darkly. "Twelve of them took out the combined Second and Fifth fleets at Arcturus, and then blew up the station. Just twelve. We managed to kill three of them."

Everyone in the shuttle went silent to consider it. "How bad were the losses against Sovereign, then?" Angela whispered.

Jacob shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "The _Destiny Ascension_ was crippled, took the asari a year to rebuild. Six human cruisers and five frigates destroyed. Ten turian cruisers, nine destroyers, and fifteen frigates destroyed. A couple of salarian destroyers, too. Plus a hundred thousand or so killed on the station between the geth and the impacts from the broken ships."

"Bolzhemoi," Victor spat. "And for this, they made Anderson a Council man?"

"Something like that. Your ordering the AI to die was heard everywhere in Council space," Miranda explained. "Between that, and the Prothean VI from Ilos, the Council couldn't deny the effect humanity had. We're still treated as the FNG, but we're also getting some respect from the other species."

"The real question, is what happens now?" Angela asked, as the shuttle settled into its place in the cargo bay of the _Normandy_. "Is the Illusive Man really just going to let me walk away, if I so choose?"

Jacob and Miranda looked at each other, while the other Lawsons and Taylors just looked uncomfortable. "Angela, if you don't act to stop the bugs, who will?"

Titus coughed, causing everyone to look at him. "That's sort of the problem," he said. "Those bugs? The humanoid ones are a species called the Collectors. We've dealt with them in our universe, and I'd wager Ophelia has as well?" His counterpart nodded. "But they were Reaper pawns. They're what's left of the Protheans."

Angela crossed her arms, glaring at Miranda. "Suddenly, my hypothesis doesn't seem quite so far-fetched."

"Don't get ahead of yourself," Miguel interrupted. "The humanoid ones were Collectors, yes. But the swarms they had with them? Those are new. Unique to your universe. So yes, there might be a Reaper out there pulling their strings. Or someone else came along, picked up Sovereign's toys, and decided to play with them."

Neville clapped his hands. "So, we're back to square one, are we? Lovely."

"Not quite," Pari countered. "We can tell you how to fight Collectors, and there's an easy way to tell if it's still a Reaper at the controls." All three Shepards, Miranda, and Jacob, all stared at her. "If one of them starts glowing, and spouting off cliché villain dialog like, 'Your end is inevitable,' or 'I will handle this personally,' then it's a Reaper behind it."

All three Shepards stared at each other. "Who the fuck wrote their dialog, Mystery Science Theater?" Angela muttered. "Gah, forget it. Let's get moving. I'm not doing anything until I talk to Anderson."

"Commander, the Illusive Man is waiting to speak to you," EDI suddenly said from the holo display next to the elevator. "The engines will not engage until you have spoken to him."

"Oh for crying out loud! Can't we fly to our destination while I talk with him?" Angela muttered, stomping into the elevator, Neville and Victor flanking her.

"Is yours as bad about micromanaging some projects while completely ignoring others?" Titus asked.

"You have _no_ idea," Miranda said, before pausing and looking at him more critically. "Actually, you might. Never mind."

"Something just occurred to me," Jacob said as they waited for the elevator to return. "There's enough living space, barely, for the crew and twenty-six Shepards. But if there's three of every single one of us, with the possibility of more, will we be able to fit everyone on board?"

* * *

"Shepards. I already received Miranda's preliminary report. Good job down there." He paused to take a drag on his cigarette, while the three Shepards glared at him. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry you couldn't convince Tali to join you. She would have been a valuable asset."

"Can it," Angela growled. "I'm willing, possibly, to be convinced that accepting your blood money to stop the Collectors is the best option. But not before I talk to Anderson."

"The _Normandy_ is yours, Shepard. I'm not going to second guess how you protect humanity. But you might want to look at these files first, before you go running off to the Citadel." Her omni-tool beeped, along with Neville's and Victor's. "One of them is extremely time sensitive, and I know you'd hate to leave someone in the lurch if you can help it."

She stared at him through narrowed eyes, fighting the urge to tap her feet, or cross her arms any tighter than they already were. She thought she could hear the tendons in Victor's hand creak behind her. "I'll look them over. But if you wanted me back to be Shepard, then I'm going to be Shepard."

"Commander Shepard, whether three or twenty-six of you, is humanity's best hope," TIM said before putting the cigarette to his mouth again. "Whatever you might think about my methods, never doubt my motives."

_Oh, I've got a pretty damn good idea of what your motives really are,_ Angela thought darkly as the holo projection cut off.

"So, let's see," Neville said to himself, opening up the files. "A convict on ice; a daft krogan scientist, of all things; a salarian doctor," he trailed off as he stopped skimming the last one and actually studied it. "A vigilante on Omega. Isn't that a surprise. And he's managed to piss off all of the three largest mercenary groups in the Terminus systems at the same time. He sounds like a jolly chap."

"This must be time sensitive," Victor said. "Rescue him before three merc groups decide to draw and quarter him with aircars."

Angela sighed. "Yeah, but, Omega? We can't set foot on the station without it coming to the attention of the Bitch Queen of the Terminus Systems." She covered her face with one hand. "Something tells me that Cerberus has probably already told her we're coming."

"Nichevo," Victor said. "If she knows, she knows, we deal with it. We dealt with Saren, we dealt with Reapers, what is one asari compared to that?"

"You had to go and tempt fate, didn't you," Neville joked as he left the meeting room, heading towards the armory. "When everything goes wrong on this mission, remember it's all your fault!"

"I am Russian. Everything goes wrong no matter whose fault belongs to," Victor muttered in confusion, following him.

"Angels and ministers of grace defend us," Angela said to the empty room.

* * *

Omega was a dark, smelly, shithole of a place. All in all, it was almost exactly what Angela had expected. They had hardly stepped off the ship before being confronted by a batarian. "Aria wants to see you," he informed them.

"See?" Angela said to Victor. "What did I tell you?"

"We see her soon," Victor told the batarian calmly, moving to step past him, only to have one armored hand slap into his chest.

"You'll see her now," the batarian threatened.

Half a second later, the unfortunate messenger was on his knees, arm bent back behind him painfully with two fingers already broken. "Getting sloppy there, Vic," Neville said calmly. "Didn't you use that same move on a pirate to try and impress Williams?"

"Pirate was less annoying than batarian," Victor said calmly, leaning over the batarian and using the leverage to force his face into the grimy floor. "Tell Aria, we get there when we get there."

"I surrender, I surrender!" the unfortunate messenger whimpered. Victor released him, and the nine members of the _Normandy_ crew marched into the station.

"Ironically, seeing Aria is probably our best bet to find this Archangel," Pari said as they walked past Afterlife and towards the markets.

"What do you know about Aria?" Titus asked.

"She managed to escape Omega when the station was overrun by Collectors," Pari said. "She worked with us for a while, before taking an assortment of mercs and trying to retake the station."

"That would have been six months ago, in our universe," Ophelia expounded. "We know she failed, but not her final fate."

"Have I mentioned how much our universes seem to completely and utterly suck? Angela, I'm moving in for good," Neville declared as they started browsing the merchant stalls.

An hour of shopping later, an elcor threatened and a quarian gifted, they finally stopped by Afterlife. They strode through the front door in ranks, three by three, and people moved out of their way by sheer dint of their personal force. At least, until they hit the main floor of the club. The noise, the flashing lights, and the sheer number of people made that less practical, so they broke up, weaving through the throng towards the balcony on the far side of the room where Aria sat, watching their approach.

When they finally reached Aria, another batarian stepped forward to scan them, starting with Angela. The lead Shepard raised an eyebrow. "Your bodyguards seem a little blind today," she said, tapping a finger on her pistol.

"He's not checking for weapons, he's checking to see if you're the real thing," Aria said, sipping from her cup and staring at Angela through slitted eyes.

"Worried I'm actually my evil twin? Because Sachiko's not here, that I've seen." Angela pushed the batarian to the side and sat down, Victor next to her and Neville flanking Aria. "So, we're here. Now what?"

"It's not every day that humanity's best and brightest comes back from the dead. Aren't I allowed a little curiosity?" Aria jerked her head in the direction of the Lawsons. "And your effect is spreading. So, what the hell do you want, and make it quick. The faster I can get you the hell off my station, the better."

"Afraid your competition is about to get more numerous?" Neville asked, leaning back on the couch.

"I don't want to get drawn into your little freak show. I don't share with anyone else, I'm sure not going to share with myself."

"We're here to recruit two people. And if I can help it, we won't be coming back here, either," Angela said, fighting the urge to grind her teeth.

"Which two people? I'll have them gift wrapped and delivered to your airlock."

"Archangel and Doctor Solus."

Silence, or as close as Afterlife came to it, reigned in the balcony. "Have fun recruiting them, then. Archangel is holed up in a bunker in the upper levels, and he's been tearing apart the mercenaries. You might be able to get in if you sign up with them, down there." She gestured with her glass towards a pair of armored men flanking one of the private rooms. "As for Solus, the entire section around his clinic is under quarantine. Humans aren't affected by it, but since he's salarian, he might already be dead."

"That's not exactly helpful," Miranda said.

Aria immediately turned on her. "I'm not here to be fucking helpful. I'm here to run this station, enjoy every luxury the Terminus has to offer, and indulge my whims whenever I feel like it. I'm giving you information because I'd rather not be in the path of hurricane Shepard. Now take it and get out, before I decide to throw you off the balcony."

As they filed out, Pari looked back and gave a startled Aria a very lavicious wink and lick of the lips, before mouthing, _Call me_. Down on the main floor, Jacob shoved aside an inebriated turian to reach Angela's side. "Did you have the feeling that if your doubles are you, then you must really, really hate yourself?" Angela just nodded as Jacob shuddered. "I mean, I get the appeal of asari, just not _that_ one."

"Trust me, Jacob. Don't ask. Because then you'll be stuck with knowing for the rest of your life." Sighing, she shoved her way through the crowd to the recruitment station. "This is where we sign up to find Archangel, right?"

As the Blue Suns man jerked a thumb at the door, she grinned. She might not be able to smite the original bastard who got her into this situation, but she could do the next best thing and turn lots and lots of bloodthirsty mercenaries into human popsicles.


	5. Archangel's Escape

_Author's Note: Man, vacation really makes me lazy. This is the first writing I've done all week, so hopefully it's a good chapter. We meet Archangel and his doubles, and maybe add a little more mystery to just what the hell is going on._

* * *

They stepped down from Aria's balcony and moved straight over to the door. The mercenary guarding the room straightened up slightly, his adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed nervously. "Can I help you with something?" he asked.

"We're going after Archangel," Angela said.

Obviously fighting the urge to wipe sweat off his forehead, he hooked a thumb behind him. Ignoring the flunky, she opened the door and looked at a grizzled man wearing Blue Suns armor. "You're here to go after Archangel?" he scoffed, about to say more as Victor and Titus entered right behind her.

"Me and my friends, yeah," Angela said, leaning forward. "There a problem with that?"

He blinked several times as Victor glowered down at her. "Ah, no, not at all. It's 500 credits each, your friends do not get your share if Archangel puts one through your head, meet up at this location." Their omni-tools all beeped with a vehicle stand nearby marked on their map, and they turned around to leave.

"Is this where we sign up to go after Archangel?" asked a young teenager, no more than sixteen.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," Angela groaned. "Really? Shouldn't you be trying to sneak drinks at an Expel 10 concert?"

"Hey, I'm plenty old enough! Besides, I bought this gun, and I'm going to," he stopped, clutching at the empty air at his hip, then looking wildly around. "Where the hell is my gun?"

Victor leaned over, catching the kid's eyes. "Listen, punk. We are on the brute squad. You," he emphasized with a sharp poke to the sternum, hard enough to make the teen stumble backwards, "are not."

Behind him, the Blue Sun muttered, "On? You fucking _are_ the brute squad," which didn't exactly fill Angela with confidence.

"Alright, let's get moving," Miranda said, trying to be a voice of reason. "No sense in making Archangel wait for us to show up."

They threaded their way out of the club again, and out on the much quieter street, Jacob suddenly shot a hand out to Pari, and when she started to protest, just raised one eyebrow. Muttering under her breath, she pulled out a really ratty-looking pistol, and handed it to him. "Jesus, that kid was going to go into combat with this?" In four steps, he had taken the weapon apart into a half dozen pieces, handing two of them to a confused Miranda. "This thing is in such bad shape it might have blown up in his hands. It's not even worth fixing." As they passed by a quarian, he dumped all of the components into a pair of very surprised three-fingered hands. "Here, recycle that into something that's not going to blow up on you."

Miranda and Ophelia exchanged glances clearly speaking of the disappointment that were their partners, as Angela stepped up to a batarian in blue armor. "Can we get on to Archangel now? Before I decide to save him the trouble and shoot one of these guys in the head myself?"

He looked at the group, pointing them to a trio of aircars. "Just let the auto-pilot take you there. If you get lost, you're not getting paid." He dropped into the driver seat of the lead car, waiting long enough for them to get in before punching it and letting the acceleration swing the doors closed.

* * *

Regrouping at the temporary merc headquarters, Angela looked around. "Alright, give me the short rundown on these three mercenary groups. I take it cooperating isn't SOP for them."

Miranda shook her head as they walked. "Not at all. First, there's the Blue Suns. Mostly batarian and human troops. Good weapons and armor, lousy tactics. Then there's the blood pack, almost completely vorcha and krogan. Vicious sons of bitches. Lastly there's Eclipse, they're mostly asari and salarian, so they're heavy on biotics and tech experts, but not as tough as the others if you know what you're doing." Members of all three groups who overheard glared in their direction, but the clear competence they all handled themselves meant they were left alone for the moment.

Passing through a room of one of the leaders, Angela paused for a few moments, listening in on the conversation until one too many sets of eyes were pointed in her direction. They paused again in the empty hallway outside. "So, what can we do to slow these guys down and help Archangel get out of this?"

"Aside from waltzing in and making three Archangels?" Neville said with a grin.

"Commander, Eclipse relies heavily on mechs. If you can disable the IFF hub, that will slow their advance during the next push," EDI said through Angela's omni-tool. "Also, the Blue Suns have a Mantis gunship that is being repaired. Some creative sabotage might also help."

Angela looked at Miranda. "Your AI is suggesting sabotage, and you wonder why Joker and I were less thrilled about having it on board." Miranda had the grace to look abashed, at least.

Titus finished hacking open the next door while this was happening, and looked inside. "Well, here's the mech, along with a couple thousand dollars in highly expensive, easily sold parts. Shall we?" Without waiting for an answer, he strolled inside, picking up a data slate with financial information, leaving the Ymir to Angela.

Five minutes later, they had also passed the Blood Pack leadership, watched Archangel take down a couple of guys peeking over the barricade, and paused near the gunship. Right as Angela opened her mouth to say something, Pari put a hand on her shoulder. "Please, allow me," she said, activating her cloak and turning into a barely detectable shimmer. As they pretended to admire the gunship, the batarian underneath it let out a slow gurgle, kicked a little, and slumped. They moved on, and a moment later Pari appeared again. "Easy as cookies," she said, grinning.

"I thought saying was easy as pie," Victor mumbled.

"Have you ever made a pie? Cookies are way easier," she replied.

The other freelancers, no more than a dozen, were running out and mostly getting massacred. A sniper rifle, even with heat sinks, could only fire so fast, and three of them had already made it inside the building. Sighing, Angela started leading the charge. "Hi, Archangel!" she shouted. "We're here to save you!" Lobbing a grenade behind her over the barricade, she sprinted for the opposite side of the bridge, and made it to the other side without any holes in her head. Though her shields were starting to take fire from behind her.

She ducked inside as Jacob and Victor calmly gunned down the handful of mercs who followed them, and froze one of the freelancers as the Lawson's took out the other two. There were several bodies, laid out respectfully underneath blankets, that were still quite rank from laying out and rotting for several days.

They went up the stairs, to find the turian in blue armor, and as the three Shepards walked in the door, two more turians shimmered into being next to him. Angela frowned, looking at the one on the right. "That looks suspiciously like C-Sec armor," she said.

Archangel took off his helmet, looking around wildly as the Taylors and Lawsons came in the door, and then relaxed. "So, where did you leave Polarity?" Garrus asked.

Whooping, Angela ran forward, giving the armored turian a hug, then stepped back for Neville and Victor to shake his hand. "So, two more Vakarians. I should have known." She looked at the other two, who were looking around in utter confusion. "Short version: welcome to my universe, you're counterparts of Garrus Vakarian, sniper expert. I'm Commander Angela Shepard, and we're about to be under major attack from several mercenary groups."

"I thought it was Commander Charles Shepard," the female turian said. "And this definitely isn't Palaven."

"No, it's Omega," Garrus said, taking out another mercenary who poked his head up too far.

"What about the Reapers?" the other male turian asked. "Aren't they destroying the galaxy?"

"The Reapers are dead, but there's something else out there, and can we please hold the questions until after we've taken out three large mercenary groups?" Ophelia said. "Although, getting your names might be good," she added.

"I'm Nassar Vakarian," the female turian said, overloading a Loki mech and sending a second tumbling off the bridge.

"Tavius," the male said, drawing his own sniper rifle. "I'm no slouch with this either, though I prefer a shotgun."

"Angela, didn't one of those mercenary leaders say something about sending an infiltration team through the lower levels?" Neville said. A half second later, the building trembled. "I do believe that's the chaps now."

She shook her head wearily. "Lawsons, Taylors, take the other two Vakarians here and go take care of it."

Miranda looked at her with suspicion bright in her eyes. "Trying to get rid of us, Angela?"

"Miranda, if I wanted to get rid of you, I'd wait until you weren't expecting it and put a bullet in the back of your head," Angela answered honesty. "But actually I want to catch up with the first non-Shepard person I know. While we shoot people."

Titus and Ophelia looked a little nervous at this bold declaration, but Tavius was grinning broadly. "By all means, lead the way," he said, already swapping weapons, and they headed out.

"Alright, Angela, so what the hell is going on? Why do I have doubles now, and where's the real combat badasses like Eric and Lilitu and your zombie self?" Garrus asked, taking out a salarian.

It took her a few seconds to jam their omni-tools to prevent EDI from listening in. "On the Citadel, when we took out the Reaper's master AI, I had a vision. The original Shepard, the one who caused all of this." Neville and Victor perked up, even though all eyes were watching the bridge as they almost laconically shot down mercenaries and mechs. "He fought through the Reaper invasion, and reached the same point. Only it offered him a choice – destroy them, or upload himself and become the new Reaper AI. Problem was, the Illusive Man was there too."

She shook her head, remembering the memory, one of the few parts of their run through the Citadel that wasn't fuzzy in her mind. "He had turned himself half-husk, some kind of delusion of being able to control the Reapers that way. That stupid master-AI, under the premise of 'preserving' organic life by turning us into Reaper-stored data archives, has been evolving the species of the galaxy to resist Indoctrination. So, that Shepard tried to destroy the Reapers, while Illusive Idiot tried to upload himself, and the AI was trying to control him. Something in the resulting power fluctuations caused that entire universe to implode or explode or something."

Garrus was quiet for a moment, using the lull to take out two Eclipse asari. "The Illusive Man? Isn't he that terrorist leader or something?"

"Right now, he's the chap who's bankrolling us. In multiple universes, apparently, he brought Shepards back to life, built a new Normandy, and bang-up things like that." Neville dropped a singularity in the middle of a quartet of droids, then hit it with a throw, hurling them all off in random directions.

Garrus' sniper rifle actually drooped as he turned to stare at Angela. "You're working for Cerberus? After all those experiments we found?"

"No. I'm quite happily taking their money, because it means they can't spend it elsewhere, and waiting for the right opportunity," Angela said calmly. "Something else is going on. Entire human worlds are vanishing, every person just taken, with no resistance. Once I get you, and Doctor Solus, out of here, then I'm going to the Citadel and get some answers out of Anderson."

"Also, see about getting Spectre status back," Victor said. "Opens doors, and loosens tongues."

"If the Illusive Idiot has been lying to me, then Anderson will straighten it out," Angela said.

They watched the Ymir getting craned out, Garrus confused as the three of them promptly leaned back and relaxed. "What if he's telling the truth? And what the hell is up with you producing doubles of _me_?"

"If he's telling the truth, then we'll keep taking his money long enough to find the basher responsible," Neville said calmly.

"As to your doubles, I don't know. Lawson and Taylor had their doubles show up from their universes," Angela tilted her head towards Neville and Victor, "but Nassar said something about Charles, which implies it's not a universal yank."

"Tali's doubles also did not fully appear," Victor reminded her. "Perhaps dependant on events in other universe?"

"It's possible," she admitted. "But it's quite clear that if we're getting every person in triplicate, then I'm going to need people around me who I can trust, and that pretty much limits it to you three, and maybe the other Vakarians."

"What makes you think you can't trust a Vakarian?" Garrus demanded, his fingers tightening around the grip of his rifle.

"Without a Shepard, Sovereign won. They all spent two years fighting Reapers and Collectors and Husks," Victor explained, his voice quiet. "Other Vakarians could be Indoctrinated, could just be burned out on combat. Could blame us for taking them away from their universe and home."

Garrus muttered something in turian, pausing to shoot another merc in the neck as the Ymir rampaged around. "You might be right," he reluctantly admitted.

They waited until the mercs had finally destroyed the rogue mech, loaded Jaroth down with bullets, and then quickly started gunning down the vorcha who began swarming across the bridge. "This could be going better," Garrus shouted.

"Nonsense, just needs a spot of tea, maybe a plate of biscuits, and we'd be having a relaxing afternoon," Neville said, hitting a krogan with a warp.

"I hope those guys finish up downstairs fast!" Angela said, launching another cryo blast at a pack of vorcha.

* * *

"Why'd we agree to an all girl's squad?" Miranda demanded, shooting a krogan in the forehead with absolutely no visual effect.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time?" Nassar muttered, overloading a barrel full of explosive compound, flinging pieces of three varren around the room.

"Oh, fuck this," Pari said, activating her cloak and ducking out of cover.

Ophelia dropped a singularity just past the doorway, stalling the advance for the moment, while Miranda and Nassar turned their pistols on the vorcha trying to flank them. "Why the hell didn't she do that earlier?" she muttered, detonating the singularity by hurling another explosive barrel into it.

"Ask her that," Miranda said. "You were partnered with her, after all."

"Not for that long!" Ophelia complained.

"May I just say how completely surreal all of this is?" Nassar said. "Fighting alongside humans, taking out Terminus scum, as though the Reapers had never arrived."

"Well, in this universe, they didn't," Miranda said, "though it was a pretty close call."

"And it has something to do with the way I got pulled into this universe, right?" Nassar paused to overload a krogan's shields, right before the door slammed down, isolating him from the rest of his squad. Ophelia warped him, Miranda hit him with a gravity slam, and Pari's sniper rifle put a bullet in his neck from two feet away.

"Something like that, yes," Miranda said. "When she was hunting Saren, she pulled in twenty-five alternate Shepards. Putting them all together had effects that, well, strained the fabric of reality." Standing up, she holstered her pistol and shook out her gun hand. "Now, I think we best go see if the guys need our help."

"We were about to ask that," Tavius said, his assault rifle propped up on his shoulder. "Are we all done down here?"

"We better be," Pari muttered.

* * *

Garm burst through the door, only to have Neville promptly yank him into the air, Angela overload his shields, and Victor put three shotgun blasts through his head at point blank range. "I thought you said these guys were tough," he complained.

"They're a lot harder when you have to take them on by yourself," Garrus said, sniping down another merc.

"Looks like we missed some of the excitement," Titus said as they entered.

Angela opened her mouth to respond, right as the gunship lifted into view, its cannons spitting out dozens of rounds. Everyone scattered into cover as quickly as they could, and the gunship drifted sideways around the corner. "Titus, Miguel, Overloads soon as it's visible again! Every other biotic hit it with a Warp or something soon as we do that!" Angela shouted, eyes flicking between the windows.

A moment later it did appear, and three Overload attacks removed the shields completely along with causing something electronic to spit out a fountain of sparks. But it wasn't enough to stop Tarak from firing a missile. As though in slow motion, Angela watched the explosive spiral in through the shattered window, closing in on Garrus, and she threw out her hand, the word 'No' coming unbidden to her lips.

Half an inch from his face, it shimmered and vanished with a pop. Garrus crouched, stunned at his sudden turn of luck, while Neville and Ophelia dropped Warps on the gunship, causing it to tremble in the air as armor panels started falling off, their fasteners destroyed. Everyone else just opened fire, pouring bullets into it. In seconds, despite Tarak's urgent jinking, the screen shattered and their bullets flooded into his body. Absent control, the gunship sank, tilting to one side until it crashed into one of the buildings across the way.

Angela stood up, rushing over to Garrus. "Are you ok? What the hell happened?"

"I was going to ask you that question," he said, the flanging fluctuating more than normal.

"The missile vanished mid-air," Nassar said. "I saw it. What the hell happened?"

Neville paced a few steps back and forth, obviously deep in thought. "Miranda, you're probably the closest we have to a dark energy expert at the moment," he said. "Is it possible that Angela did the reverse? Instead of bringing something here, she sent the missile into one of the alternate universes?"

Miranda shrugged. "How the hell would I know? I suppose it's possible, but it's a question to pose to Doctor Solus, if we ever save him from this shithole."

"Fine. Then let's get to the Normandy. Once we get a chance to rest, we can go save him." Angela stood up on shaking legs, recovering her pistol. "Garrus, you object if we torch this place?"

"Be my guest," he said, putting away his sniper rifle. "There's nothing left here but bitter memories, now." They walked out slowly, past ten rotting corpses, and back to the busy streets of Omega.

* * *

_Sachiko's Universe, Omega_

In a room full of dormant Collectors, the missile blinked into existence and slammed into the central computer. In half a second, the room was full of electronic shrapnel, and thirty stasis pods went offline. In two seconds, the room was full of smoke, hampering the efforts of the Collectors to free themselves. In twenty, it was engulfed in flames.

An hour later, a very confused Harbinger reviewed all of the data. It wasn't possible for someone to have planted explosives in there, let alone an Alliance gunship missile. Yet that was what had caused the explosion, with 99.9835% certainty. No uncontrolled organics had appeared; all organics on the station were Indoctrinated and contained.

With a mental shrug, the first Reaper set it aside for later, and continued the final extermination of the Turian Empire.


	6. The Doctor, The Doctor, and The Doctor

Four hours later, twelve people stepped into the armory. "Hold on," Miranda said, as the turians started reaching for weapons and armor. "Angela, they can't go with us."

"Why not?" the lead Shepard asked, letting Neville strap a grenade launcher to her back. "We could use the extra hands."

"Because they'll be vulnerable to the plague. We don't know how it's spread. We might even have to be temporarily quarantined." Miranda hadn't actually moved a hand to stop them yet, but she seemed ready to. "Even if they're in full environmental seals, it's possible they could catch it via cross contamination."

Angela opened her mouth to argue when Nassar beat her to the punch. "We weren't planning to enter the quarantine zone, but watch the ship. Just because we shot every merc that moved against us doesn't mean we actually got every one of them on this station." She slid a heat sink into her pistol and clicked it to her hip. "I realize this ship lacks turians, but even the former Alliance members seem to be quite lacking in their combat training."

"Most of them aren't combat trained," Jacob said, reaching over to take Nassar's pistol, click a mod chip into place, and hand it back. "That's what the ground team is for."

"What happens if someone takes the ship?" Tavius asked. "The computer isn't going to stop them."

"Alright, alright," Angela said, raising both hands. "You bring up good points, and I'll give the procedures a closer look when we get back. In the meantime, I need to make sure this Solus is still alive, kicking, and ready to work with his own dimensional counterparts." She took her own pistol from Jacob and clicked it in place. "Everyone ready?"

"We'll keep the home front clear," Garrus promised. The three turians quickly set about rearranging the random cargo crates and trash debris left in the docking hallway to set up choke points and a sniper post for Garrus. Nine humans strode through the station, letting their armor and weapons clear the crowds out of their way.

A turian guard had the doors into the section sealed up tight, arguing over a woman trying to get entry. "Move over, we're going in," Angela ordered. He blinked at her, pulled in his mandibles in surprise, and stepped aside.

"Hey, why can they go in and I can't?" the angry woman challenged.

"Because they have a rocket launcher," the turian muttered.

"Two, actually," Titus said. "Plus he's got a grenade launcher, several of us are biotics, and I think the Russian guy might just rip your arm off and beat you to death with it." They all breezed past the suddenly nervous woman and into the quarantine zone.

While humans might be immune to the plague, they all switched to full environmental seals anyway before stepping through the doors. From the number of rotting body parts laying around, that had been a wise decision. "It's like we just stepped into biblical Hell," Ophelia muttered, stepping cautiously around a burning pile of trash. "Where's this clinic?"

"According to the map, half a klick that way," Jacob pointed out, his pistol ready. "We do have a lot of corners to go around between here and there, though."

"Right. Victor, Jacob, you're on point." They moved forward, the group turning into two rather quickly, covering each other as they moved from cover to cover, despite the current lack of visible enemies. "Where'd everybody go?" Angela muttered. Miranda turned to glare at her.

"Don't tempt fate!" she said, a moment before a group of Blue Suns mercs turned the corner. "You just had to ask, didn't you?" Miranda griped while firing her pistol.

"Oh, come on!" Angela protested. "These guys did not show up just because I asked a rhetorical question!" She leaned around a burning cargo box long enough to overload their shields, and a second later, all three mercs were dead. "Besides, we outnumbered them three to one."

"Can we quit talking long enough to hear if they had friends?" Miguel asked, cautiously glancing around the next corner. "We're clear for now, but I think there's a survivor."

They trooped around the corner, scanning the area before splitting up. Angela and Pari moved over to the coughing batarian, kneeling down in front of him. "Get away from me," he blustered, waving a pistol in a hand barely strong enough to hold it. "This is all your fault anyway, human," he complained before another coughing fit interrupted him.

The two women looked at each other before they both shrugged, and Angela pulled out a medi-gel packet. "Chin up, you'll pull through this. We're looking for Doctor Solus."

The batarian slowly straightened up, the pistol resting in his lap, his coughing cleared. "You're looking, why? That salarian is a mean customer. Blue Suns tried to shake him down for protection money, like they do everyone else. Only he and his mech gunned them down before they could even draw." He shook his head, eyes blinking in pairs. "He's no doctor."

"Whether he is or not, getting to that clinic is still your best chance of survival," Angela said as she stood up. "I'd recommend following us."

"Just not too closely," Pari joked. "Don't want the mercs or the vorcha to think you're with us."

"A batarian on the Normandy? That would be the day," Neville said, returning with the others. "Maybe next we can recruit some elcor, eh?"

"Har de har," Angela griped. "Anything useful in those apartments?"

Titus shrugged. "Some credits belonging to some poor bastard, some depressing audio logs, and dead bodies."

"We can expect more of that in the rest of this area," Ophelia added softly.

"The sooner we start, the sooner we finish," Jacob said, moving to the forefront. He exchanged nods with Victor, and they moved forward to the next set of doors. The group crept forward, pausing at another corner, as the sentinel peeked around. "Crowd of Blue Suns up here," he whispered, pulling up his omni.

Pari looked at the stairs nearby, and gestured at them. After looking at the map sketch Jacob had, Angela motioned to herself, Pari, and Titus to go up the stairs. They crept up, peeking over the balcony, and Angela let her HUD relay orders to the rest of the squad. Mentally, she put up three fingers when she started the countdown, and at zero, she and Titus overloaded the shields while Pari put her Viper shot through someone's forehead.

The mercs had equipment just as good as theirs, but not their skill, and it only took a few more shots to take care of the stragglers. They hurried back down the stairs, regrouping with everyone else and retrieving heat sinks along the way. "Where are we?"

"Almost halfway there, Commander," Jacob said. "But we'll be running into the vorcha soon."

"Anyone with incendiary ammo should switch now," Victor ordered, doing just that.

"How do you know about vorcha?" Miranda asked, watching him with narrowed eyes.

"I can read," he flatly answered, bracing his assault rifle again. "Ready?" They could hear the exchange of gunfire already, cheap batarian pistols used by the vorcha versus the sharper chatter of turian or Alliance made assault rifles in the hands of the mercenaries. The pistols were far more numerous. "Aim for vorcha first, then mercs."

They stormed through the door, the two adepts flinging singularities into the mass of vorcha. Victor slid behind one of the mercs just in time for a vorcha with a flamethrower to lay down a spray of burning fuel, only a moment before Pari put a sniper round through the tank. A pair of krogan came charging from the back corner of the room into a pair of cryo bursts from Angela and Titus, followed by focused fire from everyone, even the last Blue Sun.

With all the krogan down, they turned to face the last merc. "Damn, I sure wish I knew who helped me kill those vorcha," he said loudly. "Too bad I'll never know who they were."

Three Shepards exchanged glances before motioning sharply and leaving the lone merc behind. In the next hallway, Pari spoke up. "Are you sure it's a good idea to leave him alive back there?"

"I try not to remove smart people from the gene pool," Angela answered.

"Huh?" Miguel asked.

Ophelia sighed. "He was smart enough not to shoot at us, so Angela's letting him live."

"What if he calls in backup?" Pari pushed the issue.

"He just saw us kill a dozen vorcha and two krogan in less time than it takes most people to piss," Neville said calmly. "If he heard about what happened a few hours ago at Archangel's flat, he probably thinks they don't have enough men on the station."

"I certainly hope so, but either way, we're here," Angela said, pointing at the mechs in the next chamber. "So put away the weapons for the moment, and let's play nice." Following her lead, they kept their hands in view as they walked inside, and the mechs just watched them.

"Welcome to the clinic," a human in scrubs greeted them from behind bullet-resistant glass. "What do you need? None of you look injured."

"We're not. We're looking for Doctor Solus. We're here to recruit him," Angela explained, as the man's hand hovered over a red panic button.

"You're not here to try more extortion efforts? Or stop the cure distribution?" he asked suspiciously.

"If he has a cure, and it'll help us get out of here faster, we'll help him distribute it," Miranda groused.

"In that case, he's to your left at the end of the hall," he said.

They moved through the clinic, giving patients a wide berth, and stopped at the back room. Sure enough, the instant Angela stepped through the doorway, the surgical table that had one salarian standing at its side suddenly had three. All of them simultaneously raised a pistol and either an omni-tool or biotics. Angela sighed, cleared her throat, and stepped forward as the nurse backed off. "Doctor Soluses, I'm Commander Shepard."

"Commander Shepard is male. Also artificially constructed," said the one missing his left horn.

"Commander Shepard is female, but taller. Also, dead," said the biotic with a missing finger.

"Commander Shepard has multiple quantum anomaly counterparts. Effect spreading, drawing others into her universe," said the one missing his right horn, as he lowered his pistol and omni-tool. "Mordin Solus. Reports of your death inaccurate."

"Not as much as you'd think," Angela muttered. "Any chance I can get introductions to the other Doctors Solus?"

The three doctors exchanged glances, Mordin smiling faintly, and they lowered their weapons. "Heplik Solus," the adept said, nodding.

"Ishell Solus." He glanced around. "Medical clinic. Yours, of course," he said to Mordin. "Asteroid, dirt, mix of races."

"Omega?" the adept said, and all three shared the same grin.

"Alright, alright. Obviously, you're from Robo Shepard's universe. What about you?" she asked Heplik.

"Commander Lilitu Shepard. Vanished while hunting Saren. Obviously failed, Saren succeeded in summoning Reapers." Ishell looked at his counterpart and nodded.

"This universe Reaper-free. Not danger free. Must innoculate you immediately," Mordin said, suddenly rushing over to a centrifuge and preparing two syringes.

"Doctor Mordin, your entry clerk said you had a cure developed," Miranda said as the other two quite calmly accepted their vaccinations. "We'll help you distribute it, in return for your help."

"Obvious, now. Your dimensional counterparts," he gestured to Titus and Ophelia, "and his. Smells suspiciously of destiny."

"Does that mean you'll join us?" Neville asked.

"Naturally. Chance to kick cosmic narrative in the quad," Heplik said.

"Superstitious mumbo-jumbo," Ishell added.

"Angels and ministers of grace defend us," Ophelia muttered.

"Hamlet," the salarians said in unison. "To be, or not to be, that is the question."

"That's a whole lot creepier when it's not coming from us," Angela complained. "Fine. Give us the cure and tell us what to do. The sooner we get done here, the sooner we can leave."

"Certainly. Twenty minutes. Take to environmental controls, airborne distribution. Should cure in two hours," Mordin rattled off, already moving back to the machines. "Will continue treating patients while you work and meet you aboard ship."

"Works for me," Angela muttered.

* * *

Dossier: Heplik Solus

Heplik is a salarian adept, from a species hardly known for their biotic potential. Allegedly, this is due to experimentation by the Solus family. Unlike Mordin's missing horn, Heplik is missing most of one finger of his left hand, gained during his STG work, presumably the same confrontation that maimed Mordin. Though capable of using a cybernetic prosthetic, Heplik claims it interferes with his biotic focus.

* * *

Dossier: Ishell Solus

Ishell is, curiously, also a biotic, though his weaker abilities are supplemented with more traditional salarian technical genius. Ishell's injury is almost a perfect mirror of Mordin's own, and has spoken enough within bug range to confirm they share a nearly identical history. Unlike Mordin and Heplik, he has almost no medical training at all beyond battlefield first aid, having focused more on the fields of biotics and hacking.


	7. Meet the Mercenaries

Clearing the environmental controls was surprisingly simple. The vorcha with rocket launchers received return fire in kind from Angela and Titus, Neville used his grenade launcher to break up the groups before they could charge, and everyone else just poured bullets and biotics into the couple of krogan. Plugging the cure into the machines, they started back up the airflow, filling the area with the subtle background hum so familiar to lifelong spacers.

Returning to the clinic, they collected all three Soluses, and headed back for the Normandy. Almost to their destination, they watched a fleeing batarian, chased by a scarred mercenary with two ominous-looking shadows. "For crying out loud, couldn't we just finish everything and leave?" Angela lamented.

As if on cue, Miranda's omni-tool beeped. "Our boss just sent a new dossier. A rather experienced mercenary," she continued blandly as they strolled along after him. "He's been running around the Terminus almost since first contact, gotten out of scrapes that killed everyone else involved."

"I say, that's not the slightest bit ominous," Neville deadpanned. "I mean, hiring on the man who manages to be the only survivor doesn't speak well of our chances, does it?"

They rounded the corner to their docking port, where the mercenary had cornered his batarian quarry at the far end. All three Vakarians had weapons pointed at them, and remained tense as Angela led the way up.

"Please, I didn't do it," the batarian whimpered. A moment later, all four eyes grew wide as the smoky shadows flanking the mercenary suddenly grew to full solidity.

"What the fuck?" all three Massanis said in unison. The scarred original seemed unsure of who to point his assault rifle at, the mismatched eyes flicking back and forth between his counterparts. The dark-haired female on his right held her shotgun one-handed in a cybernetic arm, twitching it between the two men and the cowering batarian. The third man ran one hand over his buzz-cut red hair, his other hand glowing with biotic power.

"What is it with all the current batch of duplicates? Everyone's first action is to point weapons at each other," Angela complained.

Miranda stepped forward, glancing briefly down at her message. "Massani?" All three of them nodded before shooting even harsher glares at each other. "Three for the price of one?"

"I'm not splitting my goddamn pay with whoever these two are," the original Massani complained.

"We're in the middle of the goddamn apocalypse and you're worried about pay?" the female exclaimed.

"What the hell do you mean, duplicates?" the red-haired one asked.

"If you'll put your weapons and biotics down, I'll explain," Angela said, staring them down until all three had obeyed. Their scars were somehow more glaring and terrifying than the Solus injuries, as though filling the three of them to overflowing with misery. "Welcome to my universe. I'm Commander Shepard. So are they." She pointed a thumb each at Neville and Victor. "There are no Reapers here, but there is something out there preying on human colonies. I know he's the original," she said, pointing at the one in the middle with his mismatched eyes and facial scars. "So, who are you two, and do you know who the Shepard of your universe is?"

The doubles looked at each other, and the redhead waved one hand in a 'go right ahead' gesture. "Faridah Massani, and no goddamn clue. Not like the media made a big deal of what her first name was, just that some Commander Shepard was the first human Spectre, and she vanished while hunting Saren."

"I don't suppose you could be a tad more specific? What she looked like, ethnicity? Being female narrows it down a lot," Neville said.

"How many goddamn Shepards did you have, anyway?" Zaeed asked.

"Twenty six, as it happens. One for each letter of the alphabet," Angela said. "How about you?"

"Roarke Massani, and while I also don't remember her name, she was a hot little Indian chit," he said, his voice carrying a faint Irish lilt.

"Why does my double sound like a goddamn faggot?" Zaeed muttered.

"At least he's not a unicorn," all three Shepards said in unison.

"Don't remind me," Garrus muttered from the far side of the hallway.

"I'll just go," the batarian whispered, having managed to crawl around the Massanis and past the Shepards before Heplik calmly stepped on his head. "It wasn't me! It was my, uh, dimensional double!"

"Until today, that would have been the dumbest protest I'd ever heard," Zaeed muttered. "Can I get this guy turned in? He's worth more breathing."

Angela sighed and nodded. "Sure, why not. Can you get it done in an hour? I want to get to the Citadel before another trio shows up."

"Allow me to help," Heplik said, putting the whimpering batarian into an armlock.

"Fine, but don't expect a cut. I tracked this guy here without any creepy alternates helping me," Zaeed said, grabbing the other arm and frog marching the batarian back into the station.

* * *

An hour later, they cruised away from Omega. It had taken quite a bit of finagling and arguing, but they finally re-arranged the quarters enough to satisfy everyone. All three Massanis had, surprising, simply agreed to divide up a cargo bay and room together, while the rest of the humans had split up between the captain's cabin (for the women) and the XO cabin (for the men).

Two hours later, they stood at a C-Sec checkpoint, all eighteen of them in the scanner, as an increasingly flustered turian punched one command after another. "I, ah, I've never seen this before. It says you three are dead, and half of the rest of you don't exist." He frowned at the screen again. "It also says you owe two years of dues to the C-Sec Officer Association," he said to Garrus.

"Those bastards," Garrus muttered, seemingly bored by the whole byplay. "Look, just let us talk to your supervisor and we can clear all this up."

"Yeah, yeah, sure. Uh, Captain Bailey? I have a scanner full of dead and non-existent people who want to see you."

There was several seconds of silence before the door opened, the blond-haired man stopping in shock. "Holy shit. Commander Shepard! We thought you were dead! All of you!"

"We've been getting that a lot," Angela said. "Nice to see someone remembers us. Did we meet?"

"Yes! Well, sort of. Not exactly," he stammered. "I was one of the officers that helped with the cleanup of Chora's Den. Captain Armando Bailey, C-Sec. I'll get all your records fixed for you, this won't happen again."

"Thanks. Most of these guys won't be in the system. They're my companions' counterparts." His face lit up with awe as he scanned the crowd behind Angela. "So can we get this moving?"

"Oh! Yeah, of course. Right this way." Bailey led them into the office space behind the scanner, and they spent the next hour building profiles just detailed enough to let everyone through onto the station. With that finally out of the way, they commandeered several aircars, heading towards the Presidium and the embassy.

The Alliance marines on duty did, at least, recognize them, and hastily opened doors, clearing the hall and leading them straight to Udina's office. "The Councilor will be with you shortly," one of them promised.

"Councilor Udina? That sounds like trouble," Victor said, missing the confused look that Jacob gave Miranda.

Before she could respond in any fashion, the door slid open, and Anderson strode in. "Angela! And Neville and Victor, too." He looked around quickly at the crowd. "Something tells me I'm not going to enjoy your explanation of this, but lay it on me."

Angela put the clues together quickly, and seized his hand. "Congratulations, sir. Alright, the short version. Cerberus, specifically the Lawsons, spent scads of money to bring back Shepards from the dead. I woke up when someone on their secret research station sold them out to the Shadow Broker, and these two popped up along with me. Then his doubles, and hers." She pointed to Jacob and Miranda in turn. "Their doubles are from Neville and Victor's universes. The Illusive Man asked me to check out a human colony that just vanished, so we did, then went to Omega. When I rescued Garrus and Doctor Mordin from their own situations, their doubles popped up as well. Zaeed's a mercenary hired to help me."

"And ain't all this a kick in the pants," Faridah said. "Yesterday this time I just finished wiping out a husk-infested freighter to get food."

"Husks? There haven't been any since you destroyed the AI controlling the Reapers," Anderson frowned. "But without a Shepard in their universe, Saren succeeded, I'm guessing?" Every single dimensional double nodded. "Alright. I don't know what's going on, but I suppose it's good to see your splitting effect appears to be limited. I don't know what I'd do if three Udinas walked in the door."

"What about the Terminus colonies?" Miranda asked. "If it's not the Reapers behind it, then someone else is using their toys. The being doing the abduction are a species called 'Collectors' and in their universes, Collectors are part of the Reaper forces."

"Is it possible that your voice whammy somehow didn't kill all of the Reapers?" Anderson asked.

All three Shepards shook their heads. "No. When the AI died, it took all of the Reapers with it. It's possible someone else learned how to turn on their toys, though," Angela said.

Nodding, the Councilor stepped over to the holo projectors. "Well, let's get this started. I can almost guarantee, you're not going to like this much." He tapped in a command and stepped back, and a few seconds later the three Councilors appeared. "I have some people here I thought you'd want to see."

Anderson stepped aside, and let them get a good look at Angela and the crowd behind her. "Commander Shepard! Is this some kind of prank? I attended her funeral!" Valern shouted, pointing angrily.

"Hey, this wasn't my idea either," Angela said. "Cerberus spent a couple of billion credits to bring me back from the dead."

"You're working for Cerberus now?" Sparatus exclaimed.

"No!" Angela said, at the same time Miranda said, "Yes," drawing their attention to the operative.

"That's a little off the point," Titus said, stepping forward. "Cerberus brought back Shepard from at least three universes, because in every one but this, the Reapers are currently destroying the galaxy." Every other double nodded along. "While I'm not thrilled at being forced to abandon my home universe, keeping this one clear of whatever threat is following the Reapers is more important."

"And we're supposed to believe that you're not doing Cerberus' bidding?" Sparatus challenged.

"Get one thing straight," Victor said. "We take Cerberus money, because then it's not spent on Thorian creepers. We work _with_ Cerberus, for now, to keep colonies from vanishing. We do not sit up and bark when Illusive Man calls, and if he does not like that," Victor paused, clenching one fist, "he can take it up in person."

"While that's comforting, in an odd sort of way," Tevos said, "it still doesn't answer why you're here. You're the first Spectre in over a century to show up after being reported dead, and certainly the first where we buried a body." The asari looked suspiciously at the six humans in Cerberus markings.

"I'm here to get reinstated as a Spectre, so I can find out who can make entire colonies vanish, and how. Then kill them." Angela smiled diplomatically.

"Shepard, while I sympathize with your plight, we cannot give you any open measure of support while you are working with Cerberus. They are a known terrorist organization, and the Illusive Man is on the most wanted list." To his credit, Valern did actually look unhappy about his proclamation. "Not to mention, the public relations nightmare that would result from us officially declaring your new life to the media. Shepard Memorial Square would be ground zero of a riot."

Jacob raised a hand. "Sorry to interrupt, but just how wanted?"

"If his location was ever confirmed, half the Spectres in the galaxy would abandon their missions and head there on the fastest ships they could requisition," Sparatus said.

"Good to know," Jacob said, a little faintly.

"I can still claim Spectre authority, you're just going to play the 'cannot confirm nor deny' card?" Angela said, feebly attempting to rerail the conversation.

"Yes. We do hope you succeed, but those colonies were started in the Terminus specifically to 'escape' Council and Alliance authority. If we start openly looking into their disappearances by appointing a Spectre, even a human one, we risk sending others into open rebellion," Tevos said. Without anything further, they disconnected.

"That was most expectedly useless," Neville said. "What about the Alliance?"

Anderson sighed. "We've known about the disappearances since the second or third one. There is some efforts going on to look into it, but while you might trust them," he said, gesturing towards the Lawsons and Taylors, "I don't, not enough to share those kinds of details."

Miranda looked at her counterparts. "We'll wait outside, if that will help," she offered.

"No, no. I shouldn't share them anyway. I will pass you all the information I can, but as far as material aid, well, with being declared dead the Alliance already turned your assets over to your next of kin." Angela winced, and Anderson gave her a genuine disapproving frown. "You haven't tried to contact your mother yet?"

"It's been a busy couple of days!" Angela protested. "And I've been shot at a lot!"

"Don't worry, we'll make sure she at least sends an e-mail," Neville said. "But for right now, if there's nothing we can do, we should probably head back out. Illusive Upstart had some other people he wanted us to recruit, and no time like the present to make the Normandy more crowded."

As if on cue again, Miranda's omni-tool beeped. "Oh look, we have someone to recruit while we're here on the Citadel," she said. "A well-known galactic cat burglar."

"Angela," Anderson said, "I sure hope you know what you're getting into this time."

"Don't I wish," she muttered, leading the rest of them out of the office.

* * *

Dossier: Faridah Massani

Faridah was, like Zaeed, born in Sydney, though they appear to have different fathers. Similarly to Zaeed, she's had a long and storied career as a freelance mercenary all over the Terminus systems and occasionally in Alliance space. Unlike Zaeed, she sports no facial scars, but instead has a cybernetic left arm, surrounded by significant scarring that suggests a close-range shotgun blast followed by less-than-skilled medical treatment. She claims to be Egyptian in descent, similar to Zaeed's mixed-Arabic background.

* * *

Dossier: Roarke Massani

Roarke is mixed Irish-Arabic, and like the other two has spent most of his time as a mercenary. The few times he's talked about his home universe, he's mentioned being drafted into the Alliance, though it's unclear if he means during the Reaper invasion, or earlier. He has scars across the back of his head that suggest he survived an execution-style shot. Like Faridah, he has some biotic potential.


	8. Stealing Center Stage

_Author's Note: Sorry for the shortness of this chapter, but I think I need to go replay that mission before writing it up. In the meantime, we get Kasumi and her doubles._

* * *

With great reluctance, Angela led the cavalcade back to their dock, and then killed time hitting each and every store. "Ooh, fish!" Pari said, staring at a holographic display. "We should get one!"

Ophelia raised an eyebrow. "You want to spend several hundred credits on _fish_," she uttered.

"We do have a fishtank, so why not get fish for it?" Nassar said.

"Heh. Reminds me of one mission," Faridah said. "Flew into a drop zone, doing a water drop to assault a pirate base built along a lake. Only they'd filled the damn lake with piranahs and sharks and some kind of Thessian killer squid." She grinned broadly as the clerk shrank back against the far wall. "Ate three of my squad before the rest of us made it to the surface. Did make cleaning up the pirates a whole lot easier."

Miguel facepalmed. "Not another 'best sole survivor' story. Please, Angela, don't make me ride with all three Massanis again!"

Sighing, Angela put in the credit authorization. "Fine, Pari, you can have the fish, but if they die, I'm making you clean the tank by hand." The Indian Taylor squealed happily, bouncing up and down on her toes. "Now let's go pick up our next unfortunate trio, and start gallivanting around the galaxy."

All their purchases in hand, they headed back through the security checkpoint, Tavius and Roarke pausing to give one of Bailey's agents tips on "kinetic interrogation techniques." With everything finished, they passed outside to the main docking run, Angela pausing as the nearby ad display started up with some kind of personalized message for her. "Wait, don't tell me," she said sarcastically to Miranda, "this is how she wants to contact us."

"Never mind that," Garrus said, face tight with fear. "One of them's a pony!" He pointed up above the display to the walkway.

Having been spotted, the original turned around, freezing at the sight of another hooded woman and an ash-colored Pegasus. "I daresay," Neville called up, "could you hurry it up? We haven't got all day! Just set aside that nervous fluttering in your stomach and make nice!"

The Pegasus instantly spread his wings, swooping down to hover in front of Neville as everyone within view snapped photos with their omni-tool. "Listen, bucko, I don't _get_ nervous," he proclaimed.

Garrus breathed out a relieved sigh. "Oh good, we didn't get Polarity's little sister after all."

"Oh wow! You know Polarity Shepard?" he said, darting over close enough for Garrus to feel his breath. "That's so cool!"

"He definitely knows Polarity," Victor said. "In the biblical sense." All three Soluses opened their mouths, to be stopped by an upraised finger from Angela.

"Whatever. Can we get on board, do some introductions, and get moving?" Angela shouted.

Five minutes later, reluctantly, the two women were on board. "Which one of you is Kasumi?" Miranda asked, and the more Asian-looking one raised her hand. "Excellent. So, who are you, and do you know who the Commander Shepard of your universe is?"

The other one blinked, rubbing her own tanned jaw lightly. "My name is Hunakai. I don't know his name, but he was tall, had white hair, and was a biotic. Does that help?"

"Jared," all three Shepards said together. "Alright, and obviously you're from Polarity Shepard's universe," Angela said, "but what's your name?"

"The name's Senka. That's also the name of this kind of rose," he explained, flicking a wing-tip at his cutie mark.

"So," Kasumi said slowly, "I have a mirror universe double, who's a mythical creature, and everyone else thinks this is completely normal."

"Not everyone," Roarke said.

"Not normal," Nassar agreed.

"It's completely awesome!" Pari exclaimed. Garrus mostly stifled a whimper.

"Anyone else likely to show up non-human?" Hunakai asked.

"Well, there was Robo-Shepard," Ishell said, "but he was unique."

"And I'm almost afraid to find out what happens if we get someone from Havoc or Zombie Shepards' universes," Angela said.

"Wait. Zombie Shepard? Really?" Tavius scoffed. In response, Angela pulled up some of Wong's footage from their last visit to the Citadel. "I … stand corrected."

"So now that we're all here and buddy-buddy, now what?" Zaeed asked. "Seems to me we could use some extra creds. Outfitting twenty people isn't goddamn cheap."

Angela raised an eyebrow. "Sounds like you have an idea."

"Look, before your Illusive Man promised me a ridiculous lot of money, I had accepted a contract. A refinery had been taken over by the Blue Suns. Using the workers as slave labor, keeping all the profit for themselves." Zaeed shrugged. "Your boss seemed to think it was right up your alley."

"Hold on," Faridah said, her cybernetic fingers twitching. "There's a catch."

"What?" Zaeed protested unconvincingly.

"Yeah, I'm with her. If I brought it up, there'd be a catch, and if you're really me, then there's a catch," Roarke agreed.

"This should be good," Kasumi said.

Zaeed turned to spit, only to have both biotic Lawsons raise their hands. "Fine. Vido _goddamn_ Santiago is there personally."

"Who is Vido Goddamn Santiago?" Victor asked.

"Founder of the Blue Suns," Miranda said. "Major amoral badass of the Terminus systems."

"Co-founder," the three Massanis protested.

"So you get a bunch of credits, and a chance at revenge?" Angela said. "I can work with that. But you follow my lead, all of you." She glared around impartially between the three.

"Works for me. I'm up for a chance to take out Santiago again," Roarke said.

"Wait, again?" Faridah said. "That's not fucking fair! Mine disappeared when the Reapers showed up!"

"Yeah, how'd you deal with yours?" Zaeed asked suspiciously.

"After I put a bullet in each knee, I held him down over a dragon's tooth and turned him into a husk, then blew his fucking head off," Roarke replied affably, causing Senka to draw back from him.

Neville sighed. "No dragon's teeth, right? No Reapers means no Reaper tech, thank goodness."

"Give Joker the coordinates, and we'll head there," Angela said. "In the meantime, let's break it up in here. Too many more people and we'll have to hold meetings in the shuttle bay." Everyone shuffled out of the meeting room, dispersing through the ship to rest before their mission.

* * *

**Dossier: Hunakai Goto**

Hunakai and Kasumi are difficult to tell apart by physical description, the Hawaiian girl standing less than an inch taller than her double and having similar body builds. As both of them wear dark clothing, complete with face-obscuring hood, this adds extra difficulty. Unlike Kasumi, she possesses some biotic ability in addition to similar technical aptitude. She is also an accomplished thief, with the same invisibility cloak, but her combat training is more suited to a support position.

* * *

**Dossier: Senka**

Being from Polarity's universe, it is currently unclear if Senka actually shares a last name. The pegasus is a skilled biotic, and his ability to fly and attack enemies from above to negate their cover offers unparalleled combat advantages. He claims to be an Alliance black ops infiltrator, due to his biotics and flying, which are apparently not common among the pegasi of his universe. Like Polarity, he is only around four feet tall at the shoulder, and apparently does not need eezo or biotics to reduce his mass enough to fly. His wingspan is an impressive eight feet from wingtip to wingtip.


	9. For Revenge, Bake at 500C

_Author's Note: And so we knock out Zaeed's loyalty mission right at the beginning. Generally not what I do in the game, but then I don't have a potential 20 squad members to choose from!_

* * *

They arrived at the planet, taking a couple of orbits in stealth mode to scan the area. In the mess deck, everyone gathered around to examine the target. "Alright, here's where the refinery is, but the Blue Suns have brought in some anti-aircraft weaponry. We can land a shuttle here," Angela paused to highlight a spot around a kilometer away, "but the Normandy is too big to use the foliage as cover."

"Who's going along?" Garrus asked. "There's twice as many people as we have shuttle room for."

"I'm going," all three Massanis said.

"Suggest group with balanced capabilities," Mordin spoke up. "Maximize defensive protection, versatility."

"Having someone who can turn off refinery equipment might be a good idea too," Titus said. "I don't want to have a firefight in the middle of a building full of flammable liquid."

Angela looked around the room. "If I have all three Massanis in the shuttle, then I can fit six more."

"Are you really going to leave us out of this?" Neville said, folding his arms.

"Fine. Four more." She glared around the room impartially, as everyone else tried to look eager but not too eager. "Garrus. Ishell. Hunakai. Titus." She grinned. "Which means you guys aren't on the next ground mission, whatever it is." Garrus frowned, all the Massanis swore, and Titus just shrugged. She looked around again. "Hold on, where _is_ Hunakai?"

"I'm right here, Angela." Shepard looked around wildly before finally seeing the thief peeking over Miranda's shoulder. "I don't always use my cloak, you know."

"Right. So, everyone grab your armor and weapons, and meet in the shuttle in twenty. Everyone else, do whatever." Angela, Neville, and Victor stood up, leading the exodus.

* * *

An hour later, they touched down on the surface of Zorya, piling quickly out of the shuttle. "I've got access to their comm net," Titus said, punching a few more commands into their omni-tools. "Also, HUD controls and spoofed signatures."

Before Angela could open her mouth to congratulate him, the mercenary comm channel crackled to life. "Someone landed a shuttle in quadrant three. We might have some runaways, so get over there and check them out."

"Too bad you can't hack the Mark One eyeball," Garrus said, prepping his sniper rifle as Zaeed yanked out his assault rifle, already moving into point position. "Angela, can we find somewhere a little more defensible?"

"Let's move. I'd like to catch them before they get here," she ordered, drawing her own pistol. They moved through the jungle, pausing on the entrance of a clearing when Zaeed raised a fist. They all paused, hearing the tromp of armored feet.

Victor and Zaeed started gesturing, the practiced signals getting everyone into position. When the first four Blue Suns walked into the clearing, their shields shorted out, three of them taking sudden headshots while the last one received five pistol shots to the torso. Another merc came running down the elevated walkway, already hoisting a missile launcher into position, only to have Neville's singularity jerk it out of his hands a moment before he too went flying.

The second wave of mercs wasn't much tougher. Two bots were child's play to Angela, without needing Titus' help, so he practiced shorting out shields and flash-freezing their weapons instead. The last one, possibly smarter than the rest, cowered behind a large rock, firing wild shots over the top without looking. "I can take the shot," Garrus said, focused on his scope.

An instant later, a blur shot across the battlefield, resolving into Ishell standing behind the rock. "Surprise," the salarian said, his shotgun pointed right at the merc's head. His opponent promptly decided to practice discretion, and fainted dead away. They all crossed the field, gathering around the fallen man as Ishell cautiously nudged him with a toe. "Unexpected. Mercenaries normally sterner."

Victor picked the guy up by the collar, hitting all the armor catches one at a time. "What the hell are you doing, mate?" Roarke asked.

"We need money. Also, weapons and armor. Long standing Shepard practice. We take their stuff," he answered, dumping the man out of the pieces.

"We might as well," Angela agreed. "Collect the weapons, at least. Any armor that's not too damaged." She looked down at the deactivated mech. "Anyone got some rope, or maybe duct tape?"

Hunakai glanced at Garrus. "Is it always like this?"

"Not always," he replied, picking up the rocket launcher from a bush. "Only usually. Last time, there were only thirty of us to outfit, and on a ship half the size." He looked through the sight and frowned. "Spirits, who maintains this equipment?"

"Do you really want them shooting at us with perfectly maintained, top-notch equipment?" Faridah said, taking the launcher away before he could start calibrating it.

"Well, no, but it's a matter of professionalism!" Garrus continued to protest as they attached all the loot to the Fenris.

"Alright, he's returning to the shuttle. We can load everything when we're done." Angela grinned as the mech started slowly plodding back the way they came.

"Shepard, not to be a buzzkill, but assuming we take the weapons and armor pieces from everyone here," Zaeed said slowly, as they waited for the bridge to extend, "where are we going to sit?"

"We take two trips. Maybe three," Victor answered. "Depends on quantity of loot."

They started across the bridge, hearing Santiago come over the radio again, threatening to shoot anyone who retreated. "Friendly fellow," Neville said. "So, what's the story with the whole co-founder thing, anyway?"

"He paid six men to hold me down while he pulled the trigger," all three Massanis said in unison.

"Sorry I asked," Neville replied.

They paused outside the gatehouse. "Now, let me handle this," Angela warned, prepping her omni-tool. "Assuming Santiago is in here, I want a singularity right above his head. Then we can open fire." She glared at Zaeed specifically. "Got it?" He muttered something in Arabic, and she paused a moment longer before hitting the door open.

They walked inside, ten of them facing down the six Blue Suns up above them on a maintenance catwalk. "What's this? Massani found a new group to hire on with?" The man above them with the blue armor scoffed. "Bunch of rag-tag looking fighters. Just as scruffy and useless as you, Massani!"

"Hi there." Angela grinned up at him and waved her pistol. "I'm Commander Shepard," she said, Neville and Victor joining in. Vido's face started to pale. "Zaeed, want to identify your friends?"

The three Massanis grinned. "I'm Massani," they said. Neville snapped his fingers, the singularity springing up above the mercenaries.

Unfortunately, Vido had already ducked away, shoving another one of his mercs into the pull of the singularity and fleeing backwards deeper into the facility. Zaeed's next burst perforated several of the pipes above his head, causing the mercenaries to start screaming a moment later when sparks from a ricochet lit the leaking fuel on fire.

"Oh crap," Angela said as the entire roof of the gatehouse burst into rolling flames. "Run for it!" Fortunately, the other Blue Suns had the same idea, fleeing out one side as their squad followed Zaeed, chasing after Vido deeper into the facility.

They emerged into the sunlight along a walkway between the refinery buildings. One worker stumbled outside, coughing and waving his hand in front of his face. "Help us! The fire, the explosions, we're trapped! I can't shut off the fuel!"

"Screw that," Zaeed spat. "Vido's getting away!"

Angela put a hand briefly to her forehead. "It's like we can't do both," she muttered. "Victor, take the Massanis and chase him down. Everyone else, with me." Holstering their weapons briefly, they jumped up to the walkway and charging in with their helmets on.

The fire was intense, the heat warnings on their armor already beeping. "This place is worse than Therum!" Angela shouted.

"At least we don't have geth shooting at us this time," Neville responded. "Is that a fuel valve?"

They moved quickly through the room, utilizing a few cryo bursts from Angela and Titus to keep their path clear, closing every valve they could find until the fire started to die down. "We good down here?" Garrus asked.

Behind a glass wall, several more workers were pointing up the stairs. "The extinguishing system is upstairs," one of them shouted. "Closing off the fuel will only slow it down."

"That figures," Titus said, preparing another cryo burst. "This couldn't be done fast enough to back up Massani, could it?"

"Less talk, more rushing into the burning building," Angela said, taking the stairs two at a time and narrowly rolling under a falling pipe. Another few minutes had the extinguishers finally going, spraying cold foam and inert gases throughout the facility.

They forced down the door into the next room, shooting another trio of mercenaries. "What kind of buffoon uses a flamethrower in a fuel refinery?" Neville said, picking up said weapon.

"Someone with a death wish?" Hunakai said, grabbing some extra power cells. "That would accurately describe anyone wearing a Blue Suns uniform today, actually."

"Let's get moving," Angela said, already moving for the door. "I don't want to leave those four alone any longer than needed."

The next room was wide open, and they scrambled into cover as more mercs came pouring in from the side doors. "Aren't we taking cover behind more pipes full of flammable fuel?" Garrus shouted, spraying shots wildly towards a trooper with a flamethrower.

"You see any better cover around here?" Titus shouted back at him, putting two shots into the flamethrower tank and detonating it along with the trooper. Hunakai decloaked a moment later, yanking the power supply for one trooper's shields and vanishing again, just in time to let him soak up the bullets aimed her way.

"Mech still inactive," Ishell said helpfully before surgically removing a hand with his shotgun. As if waiting for the cue, the mech activated, slowly standing up. "Spoke too soon," he lamented, diving back behind cover as it fired a rocket at him.

Angela, Titus, and Hunakai all hit the Ymir with simultaneous overloads, and a moment later one of the fuel tanks came tumbling down thanks to two shots from Garrus to slam into it, spilling a rush of fire over the lower section of the room. After a few seconds of quiet, Angela popped her head up, surprised to find all the Blue Suns dead. "Huh. I was – wait, no. Not going to say it."

"Afraid of jinxing us?" Neville asked, picking up a couple of assault rifles.

"I am," Garrus said. "Man, these guys have crappy equipment."

"Doesn't matter, grab it all. We can sell it all next time we stop on Omega," Angela said. "Now let's go."

They went outside, looking down the stairs. All three Massanis were sitting around on crates talking, while something that might have been human once still burned fitfully behind them next to a gunship. "We got him," Victor said. "Also, more loot." He jerked one finger at the gunship. "How much you think we get for this?"

With one hand, Angela pulled Hunakai out of the way and thunked her head into the wall while Neville started laughing.


	10. The Kuril for What Ails You

_Author's Note: It took me a little while to decide what to do next. And to finish beating ME1 and move into ME2 actually playing an adept. I have concluded that in comparison to Infiltrators ... Adepts suck. Or I just hate playing when I can't shoot people before I can target them._

* * *

Angela sat around the table in the mess hall with Neville, Victor, all three Lawsons, Garrus, and Senka. "So, what are our options?"

Miranda pulled up the two remaining dossiers. "Option one is a krogan named Okeer. He's supposed to be – if you can believe this – a krogan geneticist. His last known location is a planet mostly populated with mercenary training camps."

The three Shepards exchanged glances. "Given what we just did on Omega, and taking out Santiago, I think we should probably let them alone for a while," Neville said.

"Much as I'd like to bleed the Blood Pack a little more, it's their home turf," Garrus said.

"The other option is Subject Zero, currently being held in a maximum security prison called Purgatory," Titus said, skimming the dossier. "Assault, armed robbery," he paused suddenly, obviously re-reading a section, "and destroying an orbital station?"

Angela glared at Miranda. "This is who the Illusive Man wants us to recruit? A mass murderer?"

Titus arched an eyebrow. "You weren't exactly hesitant in gunning down every Blue Sun who stood in our way. It doesn't say _why_ she blew up a hanar station."

"Combined with random assault and robbery, it doesn't paint a flattering picture," Senka said. "Still, of the two, she sounds like the better option at the moment."

"Always the chance her doubles not crazy," Victor said. Everyone else turned to stare at him, and he shrugged. "Could happen."

Sighing, Angela leaned her chin on one hand. "Alright. So, what, we have to go break this Zero out of a maximum security prison? I'm sure _that_ will make the locals happy with us."

Ophelia frowned. "Apparently, all it takes is paying this prison a million credits. Then we show up, dock, take her, or them I suppose, into our custody and leave."

All three Shepards exchanged glances. "It can't possibly be _that_ easy," Angela said.

"I'm inclined to agree," Neville said. "Mark my words, when we get there, something is going to go wrong."

"Sounds awesome," Senka said, sniffing warily at the apple Gardner tossed to him. "I'm in."

"You're in?" Garrus asked doubtfully.

Angela winced slightly. "Well, I did say no one from the refinery mission was going this time." She smiled apologetically as he glared at her.

"Shouldn't that mean you're off the mission too?" Titus said, grinning as all three Shepards turned to glare at him. "Just saying."

"Purgatory is a space station, Shepard," Miranda said to defuse the situation. "We can dock, we're not limited by the number of people in a shuttle."

Victor shook his head. "Someone must guard _Normandy_. Occupational paranoia says they seize ship, extort us. Massanis, Garrus, Hunakai, Ishell stay as rear guard. Maybe others."

Miranda hesitated for a long moment before nodding. "I understand what you're saying. But Jack is dangerous, and her doubles probably will be too."

All three Shepards pulled up their current roster, scanning over the names. "Alright. The three of us, Senka, Jacob, Miranda, Ophelia, and Heplik. I realize that makes for a lot of biotics, but if she's as strong as you say, we may need to slap her with a singularity or three." Angela glanced around the table, getting nods of agreement all around. "Alright. Angela to CIC."

"Yes, Angela?" Kasumi said.

"What are you doing up there?" She frowned, glancing at Senka and receiving a minimal wing shrug from the pegasus.

"Scanning planets for resources," Kasumi replied. "All those research projects you set the Doctors to need fuel. Also, I've always wanted to try my hand at commodity trading."

"Okay then. Set a course for Purgatory Prison, and let me know when we get there." Angela started to stand up from the table.

"Angela! You're going to turn me over to the authorities without even giving me a chance to prove myself?" Everyone else around the table was trying to stifle their smiles at Kasumi's tone.

She just groaned. "Kasumi, we're making a pick-up, not a drop-off."

"I know that, Angela. I already read the dossiers. I'm in no hurry to pick up a krogan either."

Miranda scowled. "You don't have access to the dossiers!"

"Of course not. That's why I swiped your omni-tool yesterday, hacked your security protocols, and downloaded a copy. Kasumi out!" Half a second of silence ruled over the mess deck before Ophelia reached over and removed the data pad from Miranda's hands before it could be crushed.

Neville grinned, walking over to the biotic bombshell and putting a hand on her shoulder. "Just remember, if you don't like it, blame your boss. He's the one who told us to recruit her." She turned her glare on him as Ophelia laughed.

* * *

The _Normandy_ cruised up to the docking port of the Purgatory prison ship. The spiky design floated serenely in the dark of space, a sharp contrast to the prisoners kept within. "Are you sure about this?" Neville asked quietly. Joker glanced briefly over his shoulder before popping in headphones.

"What, about picking up a convicted criminal?" Angela tilted her head towards the back of the ship. "We've already got terrorists, a vigilante, and a cat burglar. Massani's a vicious mercenary, and I doubt we'll ever know half of what Solus did for the STG. Despite that, I think most of them are good people."

"Or at least could be?" Neville shrugged, waving one hand dismissively. "This is _slightly_ different, I think. But I suppose we won't find out until we get there." A soft shudder ran over the ship as the docking clamps activated. "Speaking of."

The rest of the shore party was exiting the armory now, Jacob bringing up the rear as he explained how the arc reactor worked to Neville. The elevator opened a moment later, the Massani trio hefting an extra piece of the old armor. "What the hell?" Angela called out.

"What, you think we're going to set up a rear guard with no goddamn cover?" Zaeed shouted back.

"A makeshift barricade is better than nothing," Faridah agreed. Angela put one hand over her eyes, taking a deep breath, and nodded.

"Right. Let's get out there," she said flatly. They opened the airlock, coming out in groups of four. The half dozen guards, wearing Blue Sun armor, were non-chalant with the first quartet, tense with the second, and nearing panic as the Massanis set up their barricade right in front of the airlock. "I'm Commander Shepard. You should be expecting me." The guards glanced at each other for reassurance. "I'm here for Jack."

One of them actually whimpered as the door behind them opened. A turian, face bare of paint or helmet, strode through, another pair of soldiers at his back. "Commander, yes. Welcome to Purgatory. I'm Warden Kuril. If you'll follow me to outprocessing, we'll get Jack out of cryo storage and confirm the payment."

Angela nodded, something about the man setting off the hair on the back of her neck. Especially when he continued. "Standard procedure is for you to turn over your weapons." He paused as Senka, Neville, both Lawsons, Heplik, and Jacob all started to glow with their biotics. Angela just grinned, her right hand hovering above her omni-tool. "But seeing as you'll be taking Jack, you'll probably need every edge you have." Waving down the guards, Kuril started walking into the station, and after a moment's hesitation, Angela led the way to follow him.

"I'm sure you don't think much of this operation, Commander, but it is important to galactic stability," Kuril said as they walked. Out the windows of the corridor were ranks of cells and cryo tubes. "I worked for C-Sec once, but I got tired of watching criminals escape simply by fleeing to another jurisdiction, or into the Terminus."

"So you run this place out of the goodness of your heart," she said doubtfully. His attitude made her wonder if he hadn't heard yet about Santiago's death – or if he just didn't care. It had been a day and a half since Massani torched his ex-partner, and they still had that gunship in the cargo bay while the bids on the extranet auction site climbed.

"I run it to maintain justice, Shepard," he continued. "The planets these people wronged can't afford to send bounty hunters after them, but for a small fee, I can keep them contained and safe."

"A small fee," Ophelia said scornfully. "Like the million credits we're paying for Jack?"

Kuril shrugged. "Occasionally, people do like to enact their own personal brand of justice." His mandibles spread in a knowing smile. "Far be it for me to interfere."

"And if those planets don't pay, their criminals suddenly come up for parole," Jacob said, frowning sharply.

"Much as I'd like to, I can't run this station on my ideals," Kuril said. He paused at a split in the corridor as his omni-tool chimed, and muttered something in untranslatable turian. "Pardon me, but something urgent has come up. If you'll continue this way, outprocessing is at the end of the hall." Nodding politely, he headed off the other direction.

"Somepony sure ain't happy," Senka said. "Unless his mother really is a whore. What?" he asked as the other seven turned to look at him. "I courted a griffon chick for a while. It really helps when you can speak the language without a translator. Even if, uh, mostly what you pick up is the curse words." He rubbed one wingtip behind his head and looked down at the floor.

Miranda opened her mouth, holding up a finger, then stopped, shook her head, and continued walking towards outprocessing. They stopped at a trio of cells, the first of which had a guard beating a prisoner on the floor. "What the hell?" Angela asked.

"What? Sometimes, you have to teach them a lesson," the guard outside said, oblivious to her glare.

"What is lesson?" Victor asked. The mask his the turian's expression, but his confusion was obvious. "What is prisoner supposed to learn from this? How to feel pain?" He scoffed. "Easy lesson. Already learned. What is _this_ lesson?"

The turian guard looked back and forth between his partner, whose blows had slowed upon seeing the audience, and Victor. "Knock it off. At least for now."

"Is better. Must have _plan_," Victor emphasized as they continued.

"Hey, if you're buying prisoners, can you buy me too?" the guy in the next cell asked.

"Sorry, we're only here to buy Jack," Ophelia said.

"Never mind!" he said, cowering against the back of his cell. "I'll stay here. Where it's safe."

Angela looked at Miranda with a raised eyebrow. Fortunately, the next door led to the promised outprocessing, according to the sign on the door. The room had a couple of desks, and an armed clerk was just getting up to leave as they entered. "Through the door on the far side," he said, stepping around Ophelia and towards the door.

"Hold up," Senka said, his wing shooting out to block the clerk's escape. "Something's fishy here. Nopony's going nowhere."

The far door opened, revealing a cell. "Please, Shepards, step into the cell. The rest of you will be free to go," Kuril's voice said through speakers in the ceiling.

All three Shepards looked at the cell, scowling identically. "Nobody takes us prisoner," they said. Everyone slammed their helmets in place quickly as the clerk ran, leaping over Senka's wing.

"Shepard, there are some very powerful people that want you, and you're going," Kuril snarled. "Vent the atmosphere! Send in the mechs!"

The air whistled out of the room rapidly as air pumps ran at maximum capacity. Angela turned to face the door, spots dancing in her vision. "Nobody takes **us prisoner!**" With each word, more duplicates popped into existence. Charles stood at her side, Quistis backing up Neville as Waldo tapped Victor on the shoulder. Two more Lawsons appeared, and a small dragon wearing salarian armor emerged next to Heplik, thin streams of smoke shooting out of his armor into the vacuum.

A half dozen Loki mechs, backed with an equal number of Fenrirs appeared at the door. It took less than half a second for the forty people inside to blow them away. A dozen Shepards led the way out, gunning, incinerating, or gravity blasting Blue Sun mercenaries out of the way. The side passage opened for a moment, only to have the dragon open a jaw in his helmet, spewing out green-yellow flame that clung to shields and sublimated armor on contact.

"**Kuril! I am Commander Shepard, and you just pissed me the ****_fuck off!_**" they screamed in unison. The glass in the hallway fractured, the atmosphere inside leaking back in. A concussive shot from a short, bearded Lawson sprayed the next wave of mercs with glass shards. A tall, pale-skinned Taylor with pointed ears darted through the fray, grabbing one of the Blue Suns by the neck and dropping him to the floor two seconds later, unconscious or dead.

They emerged into a control room, and the technician inside screamed for a moment before two singularities ripped him in half. It took Angela and Ubon all of two seconds to hack open the terminal, and they gathered at the window to watch the cryo tube open. Jack turned out to be a slight woman, covered in tattoos and not much else. Surprisingly, she didn't immediately duplicate, but her lone biotics were still enough to blow a hole in the wall and escape.

They turned to follow her progress, descending to the room and through the shattered bulkheads. The few guards fled, or tried to, at their approach. Judging from the destruction in the next room, Jack had obviously passed through, and now it was a frenzied battle between escaped prisoners with makeshift or captured weapons against increasingly panicked guards. "**If they aren't with us, kill them**," the Shepards said, raising their weapons. Singularities were set up and exploded, shattering unarmored convicts; guards had their shields fall to careful bursts of fire before being set alight or frozen solid; the entire station trembled in their wake.

Kuril was holed up in the next room, two dozen guards and a trio of powerful shield generators protecting them. Ymir mechs were activated, and reinforcements rushed in to fend off the intruders.

None of it meant a damned thing.

Charles and Victor went back to back, their assault rifles firing perfect textbook bursts, bullets whizzing past their companions micrometers from their shields. Senka and the dragon Solus took to the air, using biotics and flame and good old fashioned gravity to take out people behind cover. Neville, Ophelia, Heplik, and Jared yanked soldiers back and forth, while Waldo and Lilitu decapitated anyone who so much as looked in their direction. The pointy-eared Taylor flitted back and forth across the battlefield, too fast for the Ymir to track, buckling an armor panel with a bare-handed strike and giving Ubon access to hack it. Angela took the shield towers offline one at a time, redirecting their energies to protect their own group as they closed in on Kuril's makeshift bunker in the corner.

Charles grinned as they closed in on it, turning towards Angela. "Just like old times, isn't it? How did we-" Whatever else he would have said was cut off with the blast of a shotgun, blood spraying over Angela before he fell over, the back half of his head missing. The wounded guard didn't live long enough to even move his shotgun to a new target, but Angela stood frozen for several moments, staring down at what had been Charles Shepard, soldier, victim of Mindoir, hero of the Skyllian Blitz.

All of the extra doubles snapped out of existence with a sudden boom, hard enough the bulkheads groaned inward for a moment. Only the original eight of them still stood there, along with Charles' corpse. A cold numbness swept over her. _This isn't supposed to happen_, she thought. _We're __**Commander Fucking Shepard**__! We're the good guys! We're not supposed to die!_

Very slowly, she knelt down beside him, trembling fingers reaching out to close his eyelids, ignoring the blood and brains. A sob broke free of her lips, and her hand clenched. It took a moment to realize she'd closed her hand around one of the prisoner's shivs. Still trembling, she stood up, her companions gathered around her silently. Tears leaked from Neville's eyes as he looked down, and Victor held one fist clenched over his heart, standing firmly at attention with murder in his eyes.

As one, their group turned to the barricade. Jacob, Miranda, and Senka yanked it apart with their biotics, Ophelia jerking Kuril's weapon away. Neville and Victor were on him in an instant, holding his arms firmly while Heplik watched their back. "You killed him," Angela said, her voice cracking. "Charles Shepard, a hero. He's dead, because of your stupid. Fucking. _Greed!_"

She lunged forward, ignore his stammering protest, and drove the shiv into his throat. She released the handle only long enough to slam her palm into the base, forcing the tip all the way into his spine. The other Shepards dropped the twitching body, leaving him to choke on his own blood, and they all turned back to Charles.

Without saying a word, Jacob and Heplik picked up one of the armor barricade pieces, turning it into a stretcher. They reverently placed Charles' body on it and lifted it up, Senka balancing the front end while Jacob and Victor took the back corners. No one else was dumb enough to stand in their way as they walked the rest of the way to the _Normandy_ airlock, where they found Jack confronting the three Massanis and Garrus. "Angela! What happened? Who's – when did Charles get here?" Garrus asked, mandibles drooping in shock.

"I don't know what the fuck is going on, but I'm not going back on board a Cerberus ship!" The last two words were said in triplicate, as two doubles, both male and equally, if differently, tattooed appeared.

Angela stepped forward, her eyes dim with unshed tears. "Listen to me, you stupid little bitch. This station is falling apart. I don't work for Cerberus, but I did get the ship from them. You can stay here and rot with the rest of the prisoners, or you can come with me. Either way, get the fuck out of my way. I have a friend who deserves a burial."

They stared each other down for several moments before Jack finally gave way, stepping aside. All three Massanis stepped back, giving sloppy if genuine salutes as they carried Charles' body into the _Normandy_. Somewhat nervously, the three Subject Zeroes followed them inside.


	11. Requiem for the Fallen

_Author's Note: A short interlude here. My time has been mostly filled with Cub Scouts, and probably reading a bit too much about post-apocalyptic ponies. As always, I love reviews, so tell me what you like about the story!_

* * *

They brought the corpse to the med bay, letting Chakwas fill out the paperwork. Three Shepards stood vigil from inside, while Garrus and Nassar stood outside the door, maintaining their privacy. Every member of the crew, even their new trio of biotics, came by the window at some point during the two hour autopsy, though Angela couldn't tell if they were paying respect like everyone else or just trying to satisfy some curiosity.

When it was done, and his body cleaned up and carefully wrapped in the Alliance body bag, they bound him to one of the beds and emerged. Garrus and Nassar saluted gravely. "I don't know much about what he did in our world," the female turian said, "but it's clear that his actions here were of the highest possible caliber."

"Thanks, Vakarians," Neville said. "We'll be heading for Elysium to give him a proper burial. He deserves that much."

They walked towards the elevator, every crew member in the mess standing at attention. They were almost there when Miranda's door opened and she hurried to join them in the elevator. Halfway between decks, she pressed a command on her omni-tool and brought it to a halt. "EDI, turn off all monitoring devices in the elevator," she ordered. All three Shepards turned towards her, almost looming in shared distrust. "I, ah, think we need to take the comm system offline for maintenance immediately."

"And just why is that, Operative?" Angela asked, leaning forward.

"Because the Illusive Man gave me five minutes to convince you to turn Charles' body over to him for study." Both shoulders were pressed against the back wall of the elevator from the force of their glare. "Even if I wanted, I couldn't bring him back the way I did you. There's not enough brain matter intact. If I thought there was, I'd suggest it." She swallowed against a dry mouth. "If the comm system is offline, including the QEC software, he can't order EDI around until after you bury Charles."

Angela stared down her assigned second in command, and nodded. "Then let's get to the CIC." A tapped command set the elevator moving again, and they stepped out. Even Kelly was subdued at the death of a Shepard, nodding silently as Angela stood in front of the galaxy map. "Joker! Turn on the stealth systems, and turn off the comms." She waited until the system status lights changed. "Set course for Elysium. Victor, get everyone ready. We're going to have the entire ground team planetside for the ceremony."

Frowning, Victor nodded. "I though Charles was Mindoir, not Elysium," he rumbled.

A tiny smile spread across her face. "He was. But he was a hero on Elysium."

Two hours later, a shuttle and a gunship dropped into the sensor net of Elysium Planetary Control, sending a number of technicians into hysterics and the local Alliance garrison two alert levels higher. Both vessels dropped quietly through the atmosphere, ignoring all hails, and landed on the edge of Shepard Memorial Plaza in front of the guns of a full platoon of Alliance Marines.

The marines watched in confusion as a dozen aliens and humans disembarked from the white, black, and gold shuttle. Their lieutenant gaped as the gunship settled down onto its landing gear, squeaking softly, and the hatch opened. "Ah, fresh air!" the burly pilot declared, squinting up at the sun. "Too bright. Needs voltage turned down, da?"

The equally burly tattooed woman behind him just rolled her eyes. "Yeah, whatever. Nice welcoming party. You kids want to put those down before you hurt yourselves?" she taunted, waving a cybernetic hand towards the assault rifles.

"Faridah, play nice. Hello, Lieutenant," Victor said stepping forward easily and seizing the officer's hand in a numbing handshake. "Relax, we are not here to cause trouble. Only here to pay respects to a friend and a hero."

"Y-y-you're a _Shepard_!" he stammered out, numb hand trembling almost as much as his mouth.

"Da. There will be more of us before we're done," he said sadly, turning his eyes to the sky again. A few minutes passed in silence, broken only by an occasional unintelligible noise from the lieutenant as he tried and failed to come up with something else to say.

The next shuttle landed with another half a dozen people climbing out. "Now, is time," Victor said. He strode up to the shuttle, ducking into the shadowed interior. "Honor guard, attention!" he shouted out.

The fabric of the universe shuddered, as more people, humans, aliens, species from mythology, legend, and science fiction popped into existence. The Marines all snapped to attention as well, most of them darting their eyes from unicorn to griffon to elf (or maybe Vulcan) to the twenty Shepards arranged in a corridor stretching from the shuttle door towards the eternal flame installed in the plaza. Crowds were gathering, quiet and respectful as they felt the pull of Shepard on them.

Victor and Neville stepped out, hands on the stretcher. Garrus and Nassar were behind them, and Angela and Bradley took up the rear. Polarity stepped out in front of them, her horn shining a deep navy blue. They stopped at the flame, hundreds of people surrounding the procession and watching in respectful silence.

The unicorn circled around the bonfire-sized flame, staring across it at the rest of the procession. "We are gathered here to pay respect to Charles Shepard. He was a hero to many on Elysium, even if it was his world and not this one. He saved many lives, human and otherwise, in his travel across this galaxy. The Reapers are dead because of his leadership. Charles Shepard, we consign you to the flames. May you find peace in the next life that this one denied you."

Every engineer and infiltrator in the crowd, Shepard and not, raised their omni-tools as the body was carefully lowered to the ground. As the pall bearers stepped back, three dozen balls of plasma in every shade of orange arced forward, dropping down and bursting over the body, reducing it, the stretcher, and three meters of grass to ashes.

Bradley stepped forward again. "Gun salute!" he barked, and twenty-five Shepards pulled out their pistols, aiming them at the ground. "Fire!" The retort echoed over the crowd and off the buildings surrounding the plaza. In the last moment of silence, the doubles all vanished, their sudden absence pulling the crowd apart, stumbling forwards.

"Commander Shepard! Khalisah –"

"I know who you are," Angela interrupted the rushed introduction as the frazzled-looking reporter shoved her way through the crowd to the open space around the shuttle and the flame. "What do you want?"

Al-Jilani took a moment to steady her breathing and tuck loose hair behind her ears. "Commander, after your reported death, your first appearance is here as a Cerberus agent?"

Angela stepped forward, shoving a finger in her face. "I am not a Cerberus agent." She grinned, and looked right at the camera. "I am making some Cerberus people work for me."

"Does Charles' funeral mean the famous 'Shepard Immortality' is no longer in effect?"

Before Angela could answer, Zaeed stepped forward. "Take a good goddamn look," he said, jerking a thumb at the milky-white eye. "Surviving a gunshot to the face is a one in a billion piece of luck."

"Nobody lives forever," Tavius said, standing next to the mercenary. One of the Zero doubles flanked him, and in seconds a wall of people stood between the three Shepards and the reporter.

"Why don't you crawl back under your rock," Jack said, her pointed finger glowing with biotics. Khalisah stumbled backwards, almost bumping into Hunakai.

"Would hate for anything … _untowards_ … to happen," Ishell said, one hand resting on his pistol.

"Sergeant," the Alliance lieutenant said loudly, "I think Miss al-Jilani needs a protective escort out of the area. This crowd looks ready to lynch someone."

The sergeant looked at the quiet, peaceful crowd, filled with nothing more than a couple of dirty glares, and grinned. "Sir, I concur. Corporal Suzuki, escort the reporter safely out of the area."

"You can't do this!" Khalisah shouted. "This is blocking freedom of the press!"

"It's ensuring your safety, ma'am," he said, watching six marines forcibly drag the reporter away. "Commander, Lieutenant Nelson. Hope that helps."

"It means I don't have to teach that goddamn idiot what oppression is," Faridah spat.

"Thank you, Nelson," Angela said, giving him a quick handshake. "We need to get back into the Terminus now."

He nodded, turning back to his platoon. "Marines, attention! Salute!" To their crisp gesture of respect, the first shuttle of Normandy crew lifted off.

* * *

Dossier: Sue

Sue is one of the Subject Zero duplicates. Like Jack, he went through the Pragia facility, supposedly in Quistis' universe. Despite his biotics, that Pragia was focused more on turning biotics into more traditional super-soldier types, leaving Sue with training most closely resembling Vanguard training. Unlike most Alliance Vanguards, he uses an assault rifle instead of a shotgun in combat, his biotics mostly tuned to enhancing his physical attributes.

* * *

Dossier: Jayne

Jayne is the other Subject Zero duplicate. His past was also on Pragia, which in Bradley's universe apparently had multiple facilities. Unlike the other two, he has no biotics at all, and was instead subjected to at least a dozen genetic enhancements. Estimates are that Jayne can outwrestle an average krogan, and has bragged about being able to wield a shotgun with each hand. Upon meeting Joker, the soldier had to be restrained from breaking the pilot over some altercation about a hat.


End file.
